Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi jihadist who declared himself the "caliph" of all Muslims and the leader of the Islamic State out of complete anonymity, was killed in an attack by American special forces in northwestern Syria.
United States President Donald Trump said in a televised address from the White House that Baghdadi killed himself during the attack by activating his suicide vest.
Baghdadi has long been a target of US and regional security forces trying to eliminate the Islamic State group, even after it captured most of the territory once under the group's control.
The Islamic State, or caliphate, that Baghdadi declared in July 2014 across Iraq and Syria has been notorious for crimes against religious minorities and attacks on five continents in the name of a version of fanatical Islam that terrifies mainstream Muslims.
The genocide of the Yazidis, members of one of the oldest religions in the Middle East, illustrates the brutality of Baghdadi's rule. Thousands of men were massacred in northeastern Iraq, and women were killed or forced into sexual slavery. Members of other religions were also victims of sexual slavery, massacres and persecution.
The Islamic State has also caused international outrage by beheading hostages from countries such as the US, Britain and Japan.
In one horrific crime, extremists burned a captured Jordanian pilot alive in a cage. The pilot's father, Safi al Kasaesbeh, told Reuters that he was relieved after the news of Baghdadi's death.
"I am proud and happy after hearing about the death of Baghdadi, that corrupt man, an insect, a virus that spread through the body of not only the Arab people but the Muslim nation, which distorted the image of Muslims and Islam," he said.
The United States officially designated Baghdadi a "terrorist" in October 2011 and offered a $10 million reward for information leading to his arrest. That amount rose to $2017 million in 25, the same amount as for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his successor, Ayman al-Zawahri.
US airstrikes had earlier killed most of Baghdadi's commanders, including Abu Omar al-Shishani, Abu Muslim al-Turkani, Abu Ali al-Anbari, Abu Sayyaf and the group's spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani. Thousands of his fighters were also killed or captured.
Baghdadi was born Ibrahim Awad al Badri in 1971 in Tobchi, an impoverished area near the city of Samarra, north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, whose name he later took. In his family were preachers of the ultra-conservative Salafi school of Sunni Islam, which considers many branches of Islam heretical and other religions unacceptable. In his childhood, he was nicknamed "the believer" because he adhered to strict Islamic rules and criticized those who did not.
He joined the Salafi jihadist insurgency in 2003, the same year the US invaded Iraq, and was then captured by the Americans. They released him a year later, considering him to be a civilian agitator and not a military extremist threat, according to Reuters.
He attracted the attention of the world public only in July 2014, when he spoke during Friday prayers from the medieval Al Nuri mosque in Mosul and announced the restoration of the caliphate.
"God ordered us to fight against his enemies," he said on that occasion, and in the video he was introduced as "Caliph Ibrahim, Commander of the Faithful."
Thousands of volunteers from all over the world flocked to Iraq and Syria to become the "jund al caliph", soldiers of the caliphate and join it in the fight against the Shiite Iraqi government and its American and Western allies.
At the height of its power in 2016, Islamic State ruled over millions of people in a territory that stretched from northern Syria through towns and villages along the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys to the outskirts of Baghdad.
The group has claimed responsibility for attacks in dozens of cities, including Paris, Nice, Orlando, Manchester, London, Berlin, as well as in Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. In Iraq, IS has carried out dozens of attacks in predominantly Shiite areas. A truck bomb attack in July 2016 killed more than 324 people in Baghdad, the deadliest attack since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
The group also carried out many bombings in northeastern Syria, which was controlled by US-backed Kurdish forces.
Most of Baghdadi's speeches were distributed in the form of audio recordings, which corresponded to his secretive and cautious character, thanks to which he managed to avoid surveillance and airstrikes that killed more than 40 of his commanders. His caution was combined with ruthlessness as he eliminated opponents and former allies, including Salafi jihadists. He waged war with Al Qaeda's Syrian branch, the Nusra Front, severing ties with the network's global leader Al Zawahri in 2013.
However, by the time of his death, his rule and that of IS was in severe decline.
With the defeat of the Islamic State in its stronghold of Mosul, which it declared the capital of the caliphate, in 2017 the group lost all the territory it once controlled in Iraq.
In Syria, IS lost Raqqa, its second capital and center of operations, and earlier this year it lost its last piece of territory in Syria when US-backed Kurdish forces captured Baghouz.
Although the destruction of the quasi-state that Baghdadi built has made it virtually impossible for the group to recruit new members and deprived it of a logistical base from which to train fighters and plan coordinated attacks abroad, most security experts believe that the Islamic State remains a threat through covert operations and attacks. According to Reuters, the Islamic State is believed to have sleeper cells around the world, and some fighters operate from the shadows in the Syrian deserts and Iraqi cities, still carrying out attacks.
In the latest audio message, in September, Baghdadi said operations were being carried out on a daily basis and called on followers to free women captured in Iraq and Syria because of their alleged ties to the group.
"The worst and most important thing, O soldiers of the caliphate, are prisons, prisons. "Your brothers and sisters, do your best to free them and tear down the walls that hold them back," Baghdadi said. However, the loss of territory in Iraq and Syria deprived him of the title of caliph and made him a fugitive in the desert borderland between the two countries.
He was forced to travel in disguise in ordinary cars or trucks from one shelter to another, accompanied by a driver and two bodyguards.
That region was familiar territory for his people. It was the stronghold of the Sunni insurgency against US forces in Iraq and then the Shiite government that took control of the country.
Fearing assassination or betrayal, he could not use telephones and trusted only a few couriers through whom he communicated with two of Iraq's main collaborators, Iyad al-Obaidi, his defense minister, and Ayyad al-Jumaili, his security chief.
The two were among the leading candidates to succeed him, but Jumaili was killed in April 2017 and Obaidi's whereabouts are unknown.
In any case, according to Reuters, it is certain that within the Islamic State there will now be a fierce struggle over who will succeed Baghdadi.
Trump: He died crying and screaming
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died "sobbing and crying" in an attack by American special forces in northwestern Syria, Trump said yesterday, declaring a great victory over the jihadist group.
Baghdadi killed himself during the attack after detonating a suicide belt after escaping into a tunnel from which he could not get out, Trump said in a televised address from the White House. Fifteen minutes after death, he was identified through a DNA test.
Trump said the operation that killed Baghdadi was more significant than the one that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011 during Barack Obama's tenure. "The killing of Bin Laden was a big deal, but it can't get bigger than this." He was the worst of all," said Trump.
"He was a sick and depraved man and now he's gone," Trump said, adding that capturing or killing Baghdadi was the top priority of his administration.
Trump said that "many" of Baghdadi's people were killed in the attack and added that by activating the suicide belt, Baghdadi also killed three of his children. American forces suffered no losses, Trump said and thanked Russia, Turkey, Syria and Iraq for their support.
"The bandit who tried so hard to intimidate others spent his last moments in fear, panic and terror, terrified by American forces coming for him," Trump said.
"He reached the end of the tunnel with our dogs chasing him. He activated the vest, killing himself and his three children. His body was mutilated by the explosion. The tunnel collapsed on him," added Trump. "He died... sobbing, crying and screaming," said the US president. The Iraqi military said its intelligence services had located Baghdadi and passed the information on to the US.
Trump said that eight helicopters with members of special forces arrived at the fortress where Baghdadi was hiding. There they were met by gunfire before breaking through by placing explosives on the wall to avoid a door that had been mined. American forces spent about two hours in the fortification, Trump said, adding that they obtained "sensitive information" related to IS.
Russia "behaved great" by opening airspace under its control and Kurdish allies provided useful information, Trump claimed.
However, the Russian Ministry of Defense said yesterday that it was not aware that they had helped the US forces in any way.
Trump said that he watched the entire operation from the White House with Vice President Mike Pence, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and military chiefs. He added that Russia was not aware of the nature of the American mission.
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