The Iraqi state TV and Iraqi Interior Ministry intelligence official confirmed the news of Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi being “critically” injured in a US-led airstrike in Iraq that targeted a convoy of military vehicles allegedly carrying a group of senior ISIS members; convoy consisted of 10 Islamic State armed trucks.
Two Iraqi officials told AP that Baghdadi was wounded in an airstrike in the town of Qaim in Iraq’s Anbar province, carried out on Saturday.
Defence and Interior ministries of Iraq, both issued statements saying Al Baghdadi had been wounded, without elaborating, and the news was broadcast on state-run television Sunday night.
On October 4, 2011, the US State Department listed al-Baghdadi as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, believed to be in his early 40s, has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head. Since taking the reins of the group in 2010, he has transformed it from a local branch of Al Qaeda into an independent transnational military force.
He was born near Samarra, Iraq, in 1971. According to a biography that circulated on jihadist internet forums in July 2013, he obtained a BA, MA and PhD Degree in Islamic studies from the Islamic University of Baghdad.
Baghdadi helped to establish the militant group Jamaat Jaysh Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamaah (JJASJ), in which he served as head of the sharia committee, after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
In 2006, Baghdadi and his group joined the Mujahideen Shura Council (MSC), in which he served as a member of the MSC’s sharia committee. Following the renaming MSC as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, (ISIS) in 2006, Baghdadi became the general supervisor of the ISIS sharia committee and a member of the group’s senior consultative council.
According to United States Department of Defense records, Baghdadi was held at Camp Bucca as a “civilian internee” by US Forces-Iraq from February until December 2004, when he was recommended for release by a Combined Review and Release Board. Baghdadi was imprisoned at Camp Bucca along with other future leaders of (ISIS), he was announced as leader of the Islamic State Of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) on 16 May 2010. Islamic State also known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq was the Iraqi division of al-Qaeda.
Baghdadi was responsible for masterminding large-scale operations such as 28 August 2011 attack on the Umm al-Qura Mosque in Baghdad which killed prominent Sunni lawmaker Khalid al-Fahdawi. Between March and April 2011, the IS claimed 23 attacks south of Baghdad, all allegedly carried out under al-Baghdadi’s command.
Following the death of founder and head of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, on 2 May 2011, in Abbottabad, Pakistan, al-Baghdadi released a statement praising bin Laden and threatening violent retaliation for his death. On 5 May 2011, al-Baghdadi claimed responsibility for an attack in Hilla, 62 miles south of Baghdad that killed 24 policemen and wounded 72 others.
On August 15, 2011, a wave of ISIS suicide attacks beginning in Mosul resulted in 70 deaths. Shortly thereafter, in retaliation for bin Laden’s death, the ISIS pledged on its website to carry out 100 attacks across Iraq featuring various methods of attack, including raids, suicide attacks, roadside bombs and small arms attacks, in all cities and rural areas across the country.
Photo Via RushHourDaily.
