The Rise of Islamic State by Patrick Cockburn Read Free Book Online

Jordanian founding father of al-Qaeda in Iraq killed by US aircraft in 2006] and we are coming to kill you.” A Saudi, an Egyptian, and a Chechen all make similar threats underlining the jihadis’ open intention to operate anywhere in the world. What makes their threats particularly alarming is that their base area, the land where they are in control, is today larger by far than anything an al-Qaeda type of group has held before.
    If you look at a map of the Middle East, you will find that al-Qaeda–type organizations have become a lethally powerful force in a territory that stretches from Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, to northern Latakia province on Syria’s Mediterranean coastline. The whole of the Euphrates Valley through western Iraq, eastern Syria, and right up to the Turkish border is today underthe rule of ISIS or Jabhat al-Nusra (JAN), the latter being the official representative of what US officials call “core” al-Qaeda in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda–type groups in western and northern Iraq and northern and eastern Syria now control a territory the size of Britain or Michigan, and the area in which they can mount operations is much bigger.
    The Syrian-Iraqi border has largely ceased to exist. It is worth looking separately at the situation in the two countries, taking Iraq first. Here nearly all the Sunni areas, about a quarter of the country, are either wholly or partially controlled by ISIS. Before it captured Mosul and Tikrit it could field some 6,000 fighters, but this figure has multiplied many times since its gain in prestige and appeal to young Sunni men in the wake of its spectacular victories. Its very name (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) expresses its intention: it plans to build an Islamic state in Iraq and in “al-Sham” or greater Syria. It is not planning to share power with anybody. Led since 2010 by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, also known as Abu Dua, it has proved itself even more violent and sectarian than the “core” al-Qaeda, led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is based in Pakistan.
    Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi began to appear from theshadows in the summer of 2010 when he became leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) after its former leaders were killed in an attack by US and Iraqi troops. AQI was at a low point in its fortunes, as the Sunni rebellion, in which it had once played a leading role, was collapsing. It was revived by the revolt of the Sunni in Syria in 2011 and, over the next three years, by a series of carefully planned campaigns in both Iraq and Syria. How far al-Baghdadi has been directly responsible for the military strategy and tactics of AQI and later ISIS is uncertain: former Iraqi army and intelligence officers from the Saddam era are said to have played a crucial role, but are under al-Baghdadi’s overall leadership.
    Details of al-Baghdadi’s career depend on whether the source is ISIS itself, or US or Iraqi intelligence, but the overall picture appears fairly clear. He was born in Samarra, a largely Sunni city north of Baghdad, in 1971 and is well educated, with degrees in Islamic studies, including poetry, history, and genealogy from the Islamic University of Baghdad. A picture of al-Baghdadi, taken when he was a prisoner of the Americans in Camp Bucca in southern Iraq, shows an average-looking Iraqi man in his mid-twenties with black hair and brown eyes.
    His real name is believed to be Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai. He may have been an Islamic militantunder Saddam as a preacher in Diyala province, to the northeast of Baghdad, where, after the US invasion of 2003, he had his own armed group. Insurgent movements have a strong motive for giving out misleading information about their command structure and leadership, but it appears al-Baghdadi spent five years, between 2005 and 2009, as prisoner of the Americans.
    After he took over, AQI became increasingly well organized, even issuing detailed annual reports itemizing its operations in each Iraqi province. Recalling