Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: media-savvy leader changed face of terrorism

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an April 2019 video. Picture: AP

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi seared himself into the world’s consciousness as the figurehead of a new brand of violent jihadism but the details of his violent death in northwestern Syria have bestowed on him a very different legacy from the one he would have wanted.

It was the conclusion of a manhunt that stretched back more than five years to July 2014 when Baghdadi climbed the pulpit in al-Nuri mosque in Mosul and proclaimed the start of Islamic State’s caliphate. He represented a new type of terrorist, more media-savvy and dangerously beguiling than Osama bin Laden, who had been killed by US Navy SEALs in Pakistan three years earlier.

Whereas Bin Laden was usually filmed on grainy video against a backdrop of a gun in a cave, Baghdadi was rotund and wore a Rolex. Local reports claimed he had travelled to the mosque brazenly, in a huge convoy of luxury cars. His sermon spread around the world instantly via jihadist social media accounts.

From then on, almost every act of Islamist terrorism from Manchester to Sri Lanka was committed in the name of Islamic State. Leaders of countries that had been tarnished by Baghdadi’s half-decade of atrocities have rushed to hail his death while warning it did not mean the threat was over.

Scott Morrison warned that despite Baghdadi’s death, the fight would continue against Islamic State’s “perverted ideology”.

“He led a murderous, terrorist group responsible for widespread misery and destruction across large parts of Iraq and Syria,” the Prime Minister said on Monday.

“Baghdadi’s death is a significant blow to ISIS and another important step in preventing its revitalisation.”

French President Emmanuel Macron described Baghdadi’s death as a “hard blow against Daesh (Islamic State) but it is just a stage ... The fight will continue ... to ensure that the terrorist organisation is definitively defeated. It is our priority.”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson cautioned that “the battle against the evil of Daesh is not yet over”.

Mazloum Kobani, commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the coalition that partnered the US in the fight against Islamic State and provided some of the key intelligence for the operation, warned that the group’s sleeper cells would now be seeking revenge. About 15,000 Islamic State fighters are believed to have escaped the caliphate as it crumbled and to now be hiding in the deserts of Iraq and Syria.

Islamic State was, for a time, the most successful terrorist group in modern history, operating a quasi-state with its own currency, legal system and taxation. After his appearance at the al-Nuri mosque, Baghdadi went to ground. He never appeared in public again but occasionally broadcast statements.

It did not matter. He had provided a catalyst that drew disenchanted and angry Muslims from around the world to his caliphate, many of them taking up the mantle of recruitment and propaganda themselves. As Islamic State atrocities piled up, the videos grew slicker and glossier, with the voiceovers often read by Americans and Britons. Many of them called for Islamic State sympathisers outside the caliphate to launch attacks in their home countries and their calls were answered.

The group adapted to increasing security measures in Europe by weaponising vehicles, using trucks and cars to run down pedestrians in crowded places. Some attackers had spent time in the caliphate and managed to slip back into Europe on fake passports amid the chaotic 2015 refugee crisis.

Both of these tactics are believed to have been planned at a high level in the caliphate and Baghdadi’s input is more likely to have lain in these broad brushstrokes of Islamic State’s global terrorist campaign than in the fine planning of individual attacks — although in several of his audio messages, including one released last month, he personally exhorted followers to carry out acts of violence. The US State Department put a $US25m ($36.6m) bounty on his head, describing him as “taking credit” for numerous attacks.

His real success lay in his harnessing of social media and sheer brutality to promote Islamic State as the most feared and notorious terrorist group on the planet, far eclipsing what Bin Laden achieved for al-Qa’ida.

Groups around the world, from Boko Haram in Nigeria to jihadists in The Philippines, swore allegiance.

It was only in April, after the fall of Baghouz, the last Islamic State stronghold in Syria, that Baghdadi appeared on video again. Ironically, this time he looked more like a terrorist leader in the old style — with a hennaed beard and Kalashnikov, sitting on the floor of a cave. He is believed to have been seriously injured, perhaps paralysed, in coalition strikes in 2015 and 2017.

Russia, which the US President said had been informed of the operation although not its target, poured doubt on the certainty of Baghdadi’s death.

Igor Konashenkov, the Russian defence ministry spokesman, said Russian air power had defeated the caliphate and that the “umpteenth death” of Baghdadi held “no operational significance”.

Abdullah Qardash, a former officer in Saddam Hussein’s army and the most senior of Baghdadi’s lieutenants, was reported in August to have taken over most of the day-to-day running of Islamic State, which lives on as an underground network of cells despite the loss of its caliphate. He is the most obvious candidate to now take over as leader.

The Times, Agencies