Baghdadi, ISIS and US: The mystery to endure

The meteoric rise and violent demise of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, head of the egregious Islamic State, who attained notoriety as the world’s most vicious Islamist villain, is destined to remain an enduring mystery despite the incredible hype about the manner of his death. His death might have been described in considerable detail by US President Donald Trump, who has taken credit for ridding the world of an obvious evil, but the circumstances of his rise from obscurity to the head of an Islamic “caliphate” created with the help of invisible forces and formidable military capabilities will remain a matter of conjecture. One can even empathise with President Trump’s relish when he declared: “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead… He died like a dog, he died like a coward, he was whimpering, screaming and crying.” The US forces were apparently led to Baghdadi’s hideout by the Kurdish-controlled Syrian Democratic Forces. One article in the Independent quoted a leaked 2014 US state department memo which admitted Saudi Arabia, Qatar were supporting ISIS and other jihadi groups in the region. But in the leaked memo, which says that it draws on ‘Western intelligence, US intelligence and sources in the region’ there is no ambivalence about who is backing ISIS, which at the time of writing was butchering and raping Yazidi villagers and slaughtering captured Iraqi and Syrian soldiers”, the article added.