militant leader

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

أبو بكر البغدادي

Also known as: Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim al-Badri • Abu Duaa • Caliph Ibrahim

Journeys

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: How Camp Bucca Built the Islamic State

Baghdadi's rise to lead ISIS and exploit Syria's civil war is inextricable from the American invasion of Iraq. Camp Bucca — the US detention facility where he was held for five years — has been called 'The University of Jihad' by analysts: it concentrated thousands of radicals, allowed networks to form, and radicalized otherwise moderate Islamists through shared imprisonment. Assad's deliberate policy of releasing ISIS-linked prisoners from Sednaya in 2011-2012 was designed to contaminate the opposition with extremists.

Biography

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was the founder and self-proclaimed caliph of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/Daesh), the most destructive terrorist organization of the 21st century. Born Ibrahim Awwad al-Badri in Samarra, Iraq in 1971, he was a cleric who rose through al-Qaeda in Iraq to declare a caliphate spanning Syria and Iraq in June 2014. His organization was responsible for genocides, mass executions, sexual slavery, and war crimes against Yazidis, Kurds, Christians, and Shia Muslims. He was killed in a US Special Operations raid in Barisha, Idlib, Syria on October 27, 2019.

Documentation Status

VerificationConfirmed

Journeys1

Key Facts

Born:1971-07-28

Place:Samarra, Iraq

Died:2019-10-27

Nationality:Iraqi