How Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi rose from a radical religious scholar to the brutal leader of the most powerful terrorist group in the world
Reuters
- President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that US Special Forces killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the founder and leader of the Islamic State, during a raid in the Idlib province of Syria on Saturday.
- The self-declared caliph of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Al-Baghdadi, 48, was instrumental in building ISIS into one of the most potent terrorist groups in history.
- Al-Baghdadi joined the fight against the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and was radicalized during his detention by US forces at Camp Bucca in Iraq in 2004.
- He first served as a religious adviser to al-Qaeda terrorist cells in Iraq and later rose to become the top leader in 2010 of what was then the Islamic State of Iraq.
- Al-Baghdadi personally promoted and participated in the systematic rape of women who ISIS considered non-believers. He held an American woman, Kayla Mueller, captive as a sex slave before she was killed.
- Read more stories like this on Business Insider.
President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that US Special Forces killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the founder and leader of the Islamic State, during a raid in the Idlib province of Syria on Saturday.
"Last night, the United States brought the world's number one terrorist to justice," Trump announced at a nationally-televised Sunday morning press conference. "Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead."See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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- Trump claims the killing of ISIS leader al-Baghdadi is more significant than Osama bin Laden's assassination
- Trump thanks Russia and other nations for helping with the US mission to kill ISIS leader al-Baghdadi
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