How Baghdadi built his cult of cruelty

Alive or dead, Islamic State (IS) founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi remains one of the most influential figures on the world scene. He has been far more successful in inspiring and recruiting young Muslims than al-Qaeda central, IS’s parent organisation. Al-Qaeda’s chief disadvantage is being based on the Pakistan-Afghan frontier, while Baghdadi’s cult arose in the strategic West Asian heartland and seized wide swathes of territory once ruled by the Umayyad and Abbasid empires. History matters in West Asia.

Baghdadi made his headquarters the Syrian city of Raqqa, the summer capital of Harun al-Rashid, the eighth century Arab ruler who presided during the “Golden Age of Islam.” After IS fighters swept into Iraq’s second largest city Mosul in June 2014, Baghdadi declared a “caliphate” with himself as caliph, a ruler considered to be chosen by God. While Baghdadi’s ambition might appear demented to political savants, to unsophisticated Muslim youngsters ignored and alienated by their governments, he appeared to be a saviour offering life in a Muslim utopia.

IS recruiters benefitted from a wide range of computer connections. Young men who played wargames sought to replace the virtual world with the real world and become fighters on battle-fields they had previously seen only in films.

Potential recruits were personally groomed by IS activists based in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. Arrangements for those who decided to join IS were made by underground “travel agents” who, with the cooperation of the Turkish government, smuggled thousands of volunteers across the Turkish border into Syria and Iraq.

IS provided recruits with identities as “mujahedin,” or holy warriors, training, guns, uniforms, salaries and captive women. This empowered powerless and forgotten men, and some women, who did not hesitate to exercise their authority over residents of conquered cities, towns and villages.

Baghdadi also attracted scores of clerics who staffed Islamic courts and educated opportunists who saw IS as a means to secure jobs as IT specialists and propagandists in the cult’s well-developed outreach programmes.

Doctors, engineers and other professionals flocked to the caliphate. It engaged Turkish middlemen to buy crude from Syria’s captured oil fields and provide occupied areas with essential goods. During 2014-15, IS was the world’s richest terrorist organisation.

While the US military believes Baghdadi is still alive — and Washington has posted a $25 million bounty on his head — and Russia claims to have killed him in an airstrike in May, his fate remains unknown and may remain unknown unless he decides to surface or proof of his death is discovered. He is an elusive figure who wore a mask when meeting aides and commanders but chose to show his face when proclaiming his caliphate in mid-2014 from the pulpit of the main mosque in Mosul. 

Baghdadi was born Ibrahim Awwad in 1971 in the Iraqi town of Samarra. He became a reclusive religious scholar and, from 1994 to 2004, lived in a room attached to a small mosque in a poor district on the edge of Baghdad. He is reported to have studied at an Islamic institute which provided him with credentials as a scholar.

The 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq transformed Baghdadi into a resistance fighter. Arrested in February 2004, he was held at Abu Ghraib prison, infamous for American abuse of inmates, and the notorious Camp Bucca on the Kuwait border. During confinement, Baghdadi and other fellow prisoners formed cells and planned operations against US forces once they were released.

In 2006, he co-founded the group which became the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — later rebranded as IS — and became its head in 2010. He made his name by mounting deadly attacks against US troops and Iraqi police and civilians. Following the eruption of unrest in neighbouring Syria, he dispatched fighters there, capturing Raqqa in 2013. In 2014, the cult returned to Iraq, where it quickly seized 40% of the country.

In conquered territory, the IS forced men to grow beards and attend mosque prayers five times a day. Women were confined to their homes and had to cover themselves completely on the rare occasions when they went out, accompanied by male relatives. Schools were closed; boys attended IS courses on religion and combat; smoking was punished by fines, beatings and imprisonment; mobile phones were prohibited; and opponents were decapitated or crucified.

Despite well-publicised IS beheadings of US and European captives, Western and Arab governments did not launch their air campaign against the IS until it captured Mosul. Although Baghdadi has disappeared, his absence has not reduced or halted recruitment to his cause.

The ruthless dismantling of his caliphate has not dampened the enthusiasm of followers, who remain ready to follow orders from commanders in West Asia to mount attacks in Europe or to launch independent operations in the name of IS.

The cruel cult has spread to Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and many countries in North and Sub-Saharan Africa and continues to secure recruits elsewhere.