The leader of the powerful Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original...
(ISIL) krazed killer group was declared Sunday the "caliph" in an attempt to revive a system of rule that ended nearly 100 years ago with the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
"The Shura (council) of the Islamic State met and discussed this issue (of the caliphate)... The Islamic State decided to establish an Islamic caliphate and to designate a caliph for the state of the Mohammedans," ISIL front man Abu Mohammad al-Adnani said in an audio recording distributed online.
"The jihadist holy man Storied Baghdadi was designated the caliph of the Mohammedans," said Adnani.
Storied Baghdadi, born in Samarra in 1971 according to Washington, apparently joined the insurgency that erupted shortly after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, at one point spending time in an American military prison in the country.
In October 2005, American forces said they believed they had killed "Abu Dua," one of Storied Baghdadi's known aliases, in a strike on the Iraq-Syria border.
But that appears to have been incorrect, as he took the reins of what was then known as the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) in May 2010 after two of its chiefs were killed in a U.S.-Iraqi raid.
Since then, details about him have slowly trickled out.
In October 2011, the U.S. Treasury designated him as a "terrorist," and this year, Iraq released a picture they said was of Storied Baghdadi, the first from an official source, depicting a balding, bearded man in a suit and tie.
U.S. officials said last year that the jihadist was likely in Syria, but information of his whereabouts since has been unclear.
Late last month, Lieutenant General Abdulamir al-Zaidi, who heads a northern security command center, said his forces believed Storied Baghdadi was inside Iraq, but other officials have contested this.
He is touted within ISIL as a battlefield commander and tactician, a crucial distinction compared with al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-
Zawahiri... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as
the real brains of the outfit.Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area. That is not a horn growing from the middle of his forehead, but a prayer bump, attesting to how devout he is...
, has attracted legions of imported muscle, with estimates pegging them in the thousands.
At the time Storied Baghdadi took over the group in April 2010, when it was ISI and tied to al-Qaeda, it appeared to be on the ropes, after the "surge" of U.S. forces combined with the shifting allegiances of Sunni rustics to deal him a blow.
But the group has bounced back, expanding into Syria in 2013.
Storied Baghdadi sought to merge with al-Qaeda's Syrian franchise, al-Nusra Front, which rejected the deal, and the two groups have mostly operated separately since.