An Islamic college teacher turned al-Baghdadi, who was eliminated last week, the leader of the brutal terrorist organization in history • Although he was not a bully like a-Zarqawi, nor an adventurer like Bin Laden - the extreme ideology swept him and the organization • excerpts from the book "Black Flags" , Which has become a global bestseller

• Al-Baghdadi // Photo: AFP

Without the US invading Iraq, the Islamic State's greatest slaughterman would probably continue to lead a college teacher's life. By 2003, life had directed him toward a quiet career of teaching Muslim law to young people in their 20s, rather than tying bombs on their chests.

Later, Islamist biographers attributed great intellectual skills and natural tendency to jihad to Abu Bakr al-Baghdad, although none of this was evident in the comprehensive profiles that Western intelligence agencies put together. Nothing in his formative years suggested that a man born by the name of Ibrahim Awad al-Badri has extraordinary talents or inclinations, except for the legal interpretation of thousands of statements and orders in the Holy Scriptures.

US Documentation: This is how the ISIS leader was eliminated

He was not a violent bully like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of the al-Qaeda branch in Iraq, or an adventurer like Osama bin Laden, who moved to Pakistan after college to join Mujahideen in Afghanistan. He had no early manifestations of charisma or cruelty.

Instead, acquaintances remember a shy, short-sighted young man who liked football and usually did not socialize with people. In fact, for the first 32 years of his life, Al Baghdadi seems to have attracted little attention even in his neighborhood. One family member remembered "a young man so quiet that his voice could hardly be heard."

"He always had his books on the bicycle religious books or other books," neighbor Tariq Hamid told Newsweek reporter, recalling the drunk boy who lived near him in one of the lower middle-class neighborhoods of Samara. Al-Baghdi, the son of Imam Sunni in the city, wore the traditional prayer garment and white robe of the devout religious and preferred to spend his free time in the mosque and not with other young people from the city. "I've never seen him in a shirt and pants, like most guys in Samara," the neighbor said. "He had a little beard, and he never sat in cafes."

More on the subject

• Trump: "We have eliminated Al Baghdadi's successor"

• Kurdish senior: "Al-Baghdadi was eliminated because of his underwear"

Trump: "Baghdad blows himself up scared and whining"

• Al-Baghdadi's liquidation: Will American achievement collapse ISIS?

• The end of Caliph Al-Baghdadi: an introverted cleric who became the ruler of a terror empire

• DNA testing, Kurdish cooperation and arrival at destination: New details from elimination to Baghdadi

One argument about his family's background was critical at a later stage in his life: he claimed to be a member of the Al-Badri tribe in Iraq, a fact that Islamic scholars believed was essential to one who aspires to be a caliph, the head of the Muslim nation. This was not a particularly unusual claim in the Black Samara, where there are hundreds of Al-Badri tribes and dozens of other tribes, who can claim the same degree of legitimacy as part of Prophet Muhammad.

But al-Baghdadi's extended family burned with religious fervor, which could explain his piety during his youth and his drift to fanatics later. His grandfather carried the Hajj title after going on pilgrimage to the Holy Ka'ba in Mecca, and among his uncles and brothers were quite a few preachers and religious teachers. According to one of Al Baghdadi's jihadist biographers, his father's sermons were known for their emphasis on "promoting virtue and preventing evil."

He grew up in one of the turbulent periods of Iraq's modern history. Born in 1971, he was in his late teens when the Iran-Iraq war ended in a deadlock after eight years of fighting and a total loss of at least half a million people. When he was almost 20, the Iraqi army suffered a humiliating defeat in the First Gulf War. In between, he probably served in the Iraqi army, although there was no evidence that he was present in the battle. What is clear is that in his youth he moved to Baghdad to attend college, and in 1999 earned a bachelor's degree in Muslim law and theology.

His dive into the mysterious world of religious codes in the seventh century seems to have taken away the Puritan side. Addicts remembered how Al-Baghdad got angry during his studies, when women and men were allowed to dance in the same hall during weddings. "It's not religious!" Complained. In any case, he liked the subject enough to continue his studies until his early 30s. On March 20, 2003, he was 32 and on his way to obtain a Ph.D., and a future professor, when the United States invaded Iraq.

The American crush has fueled the Muslim law student's world, which more than most people have known is the Qur'anic order, which calls for the protection of Muslim countries from invaders. That same year, he enlisted in one of the small resistance movements that engaged in hit-and-run attacks against U.S. soldiers, though he did not appear to have contributed there in a practical way.

Book cover

Several months later, he was captured. Some details about his capture are blurry, but US records confirm that American soldiers seized Ibrahim Awad al-Badri in a raid on a house in Fallujah at the end of January 2004. On February 4, he was assigned to one of Iraq's most frightening destinations known as Camp Bucca.

A military photographer snapped a portrait of a frightened, round-faced man approaching early middle age, wearing a thin-frame glasses and a thick beard. This is one of Al-Baghdadi's few known pictures he warned. The next time he was filmed, more than ten years later, he looked different in every way: his journey from a devout young man to a bloodthirsty extremist was about to begin.

√ √ √

The Al Baghdad prison landed on it was a city of barbed wire and tents. It was erected on a sun-drenched plain a few miles from the Iraqi border with Kuwait, and is located on an area of ​​five square miles. For those who arrived at it by night in the helicopter, as many times the American sailors who kept there did, Boca Camp looked a bit like Las Vegas: a city full of lights in the middle of a desolate desert. But between camp settings was more like the Wild West.

The British set up camp for prisoners of war, but the Americans later expanded it rapidly to accommodate a huge amount of Iraqis arrested after the uprising began. Although the camp was designed to accommodate 20,000 people, the population sometimes swelled to more than 26,000, all living in shared tents, where summer temperatures soared to 60 degrees.

The heat, plus the moisture from the greasy Persian Gulf, drove both the prison guards and the prisoners crazy. "It's like you're in the microwave," said a soldier in the US Navy who served at a watch tower in a camp for a journalist who reviewed what was going on there.

Demolition of al-Baghdadi compound in Syria // Photo: IP

Camp commanders have made significant improvements over the years, including replacing tents in air-conditioned white huts and adding classrooms to literate and carpentry and instructional classes. But in early 2004 the Islamists ruled the tents.

The prisoners were divided according to their beliefs, and the Sunnis who lived under strict Sharia laws either forced themselves or brutally enforced. Anyone who disobeyed - or cheated on others by showing cordiality to the Americans - had a punishment ranging from beating to uprooting. In compound 30, where the most violent Islamists were held, the prisoners vented their hostility by throwing feces or bullets called "chai stones" - sweet tea sediments mixed with sand and dried in the sun - toward the guards who patroled them.

One of the senior executives of the Boca camp admitted that the place had functioned poorly in al-Baghdadi's time, and from the point of view of the commanders, who sought to suppress the Sunni uprising, he was also useless. According to the officer, through the joint incarceration of Islamist radicals and Iraqis in a wilderness enclosure without law, US officials have distractedly created a "jihad university" that helped instill Islamist ideas into a new generation of fighters.

If the Boca camp was indeed a jihad university, al-Baghdadi was her most successful alumnus. Although not a tough guy, he found a way to survive in prison, and even flourish. Al-Baghdadi formed several important friendships and alliances, including one with a Zarqawi devotee, Abu Muhammad al-Adani, who after years became his chief deputy and speaker.

Moreover, the young Muslim scholar has found that his academic experience gives him a certain status. The mini-Islamist society in the camp needed someone who could interpret Sharia law, and in that respect, al-Baghdadi was exceptionally talented. He could conduct the daily prayers, in which the uniformed yellow uniformed prisoners lined up in the rows of thousands on the prayer rugs to swear allegiance to Allah. He was also experienced in classical Arabic speaking and teaching, the language used in the Qur'an, formal ceremonies and speeches.

Al-Baghdadi, who lived his entire life among clergy, could even emulate the style of recitation of the most learned Imams in the great mosques in Baghdad and Mosul. His voice was pleasant and yet authoritative, and the people liked to hear it.

The scholarly skills that helped al-Baghdad gain respect among his fellow prisoners also enabled him to gain early release. In the Boca camp, the less dangerous prisoners were regularly released to dilute the severe overcrowding, which was a source of constant tension and occasional riots among the prisoners. At the end of 2004, the prison parole committee examined Ibrahim Awad al-Badri's case and decided that the bespectacled academic was not a threat. It was released on December 6, 2004, not before a medical team took a DNA sample for a vigil. If this man appears somewhere, alive or dead, and in the context of a future terrorist operation, Americans will be able to clearly know who he is.

Ten months after he was imprisoned, Al-Baghdi came under the control of the US security forces with an even greater determination to fight them. Years later, his desire to defeat America became a prayer chorus. "Take care of America and its allies, O Allah," he will say in one of his public prayers. "Tighten your grip on them ... Defeat them in the worst defeat ever. Scatter their assemblies, split their bodies, give them up completely, and let them raid them, and not let them raid us."

√ √ √

For a while, al-Baghdadi tried to avoid further conflicts with the Americans. He was now married, the first of his three wives, and fathered at least one child of four. After being released from prison, he returned to study and continued for a doctorate in Muslim law, which he received in 2007. But even before that, it was drawn back to the uprising.

According to the decision of the advisory council, Shura, established by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2006, his old organization merged with several other organizations, and al-Baghdadi was asked to be one of the council's advisers on Sharia law.

The profile drawn by Western intelligence officials suggested that Zarqawi, an amateur in theology who enjoys arguing with religious scholars, probably knew the man who would eventually replace him. But al-Baghdad was still an unknown figure at that time, even among jihadists.

"A-Zarqawi was closer to me than a brother, but I did not know Al-Baghdadi. He was not significant," he told the London Telegraph in 2014, Ahmad al-Dabash, a contemporary of Al-Baghdadi and a member of another militia called Iraqi Islamic Army. " "He used to conduct the prayer in a mosque near my area. Nobody really noticed him."

A-Zarqawi's death in June 2006 changed everything. The heirs of the al-Qaeda movement in Iraq had other ideas about how an uprising should be managed, and they quickly organized a new name: the Islamic State in Iraq.

Al-Baghdadi // Photo: Reuters

Among the dominant leaders were now some former officers in Saddam Hussein's defeated army - colonels and Sunni captains, who had made an alliance with al-Zarqawi, but he never quite trusted them. After the death of a-Zarqawi, former members of the Ba'ath party acted in favor of Iraqi control over the organization, from the central level to the field cities, which Islamists ruled.

Once again, al-Baghdadi's skills have made him unique: here is a Sharia law expert, with a solid Iraqi-Sunni background, who can ensure that the organization's dispersed cells are ideologically aligned. Al-Baghdad quickly became the head of the Sharia in a small agricultural village called al-Karma, on the outskirts of Peluja. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed head of religious affairs in all of Anbar district. Then, in early 2010, he was appointed Shariah Head of the entire organization.

The promotion actually placed him at the top of the Islamic State, and was only subordinate to the senior leader and minister of war. That was the position he held on April 18, 2010, when American missiles and Iraqi rockets wiped out a hiding place outside of a high-rise town, destroying Number 1 and Number 2 in one organization. At least in the meantime, al-Baghdadi, the scholarly scholar whose colleagues dismissed him as "insignificant," headed the Islamic State in Iraq alone.

√ √ √

A month passed before Al Baghdad was officially announced as Amir. Despite his high rank, his rise to the leadership of the organization was not really guaranteed. In fact, many Western and Middle Eastern intelligence personnel believed that the role would move to a more polished figure with extensive experience in command and operations management. But though El-Baghdad was still an outsider, he had the support of the leadership council, made up of Atz and former Zarqawi people.

Among those who approved the promotion was a ruthless Iraqi colonel named Samir al-Halifawi, head of the organization's military council. He was a former man who joined the uprising after the US invasion, and he pushed al-Baghdadi to take the role and promised to serve as his mentor and senior deputy - according to documents discovered years later, after al-Halifawi's death in battle in Syria.

Al-Halifawi, the white beard, was better known by jihadist Hajj Bachar, and intelligence analysts saw him as an experienced strategist, who was the chief responsible for the Islamic State's early military successes.

Despite al-Baghdadi's inexperience, he gave the organization some advantages. One was his willingness to provide religious cover for cruel acts that clerics from around the world condemned as non-Muslim acts - masturbation, suicide bombers, kidnappings, financial blackmail, Shi'ite war, shedding of blood of innocent Muslims. Al-Baghdadi not only endorsed these acts, but also legally justified them under Islamic law.

His other great advantage was his adaptation to the role of the caliph - a symbolically important detail for an organization that wanted its Islamic State claims to be taken seriously. Al Baghdadi, with his genealogical attribution and scholarly background, could have aspired for a leadership that would rise much higher than a-Zarqawi.

ISIS attack at the peak of the organization's success, 2014 // Photo: IP

For the next few years he worked diligently to prepare himself for the mythical role he received as a High Providence appointment. An American official familiar with his life story says that "he wrapped himself in all the right religious skills and paid close attention to his image, wear, the way he moves and speaks. He worked hard to show that he was in his right place."

That was the purpose for which Al-Baghdad sent his envoys to cross the border from Iraq to Syria in August 2011, in search of a place where the caliphate would flourish, which was still fading on its homeland. To Al Baghdadi, a successful initiative can help ensure the organization's existence in the years to come. More importantly, the Islamic State would take a first step toward erasing the artificial borders that colonial forces forced Muslims to split.

"We have crossed the borders between the Muslim countries, which they have abhorred to dispel our progress," Al-Baghdadi would later say of his Syrian experiment. "This is the country that Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi paved the way for. It will not in any way withdraw from the territory into which it has expanded."

√ √ √

On April 9, 2013, Al-Baghdad distributed a 21-minute voice message on Islamist websites announcing general rehabilitation. He officially ousted Jabhat a-Nusra from the organization. In its place, a new integrated organization was established, Al-Baghdadi called "the Islamic State in Iraq and Al-Sham" - ISIS. The word "Al-Sham," roughly equivalent to the English word "Levant," refers to countries in the eastern Mediterranean, from southern Turkey to present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel. English speakers will recognize the new organization called ISIL, or the more commonly known name, ISIS (AISIS).

To explain this change, al-Baghdadi described the history of the organization and began from the early days under esteemed Zarqawi, the founder and esteemed Sheikh Mujahide. He told a story of how a-Zarqawi, when he had sworn allegiance to Osama bin Laden for the first time, privately explained to his followers that he was doing so for strategic reasons, and not for devotion or genuine need.

"Jabhat a-Nusra was just an offshoot and part of the Islamic State organization in Iraq," said Al-Baghdadi. "So we put our trust in Allah and announce the repeal of the name 'Islamic State in Iraq' and the repeal of the name 'Jabhat a-Nusra' and their merger to one - 'Islamic State in Iraq and Al-Sham'. And we also announce the merger of the flag, which is the state flag Islamic. "

The announcement was a new low for information analysts in the West. These assumed for a long time that Jabhat a-Nusra was a branch of the Islamic State, though one that decided, at least temporarily, to refine its image. Now Al-Baghdad has publicly stated that both organizations are one. Even more so - the Iraqi, more formidable side took command.

But the most assertive response came from a surprising source: Al Baghdadi's alleged partner in the merger. No one bothered to secure the consent of the Jabhat a-Nusra organization, which turned out to have no intention of fading away. The leader of the organization, Abu Muhammad al-Julani, fired back two days later with a recorded message denying everything Al-Baghdad said. "The Jabhat a-Nusra flag will remain, nothing will change it," said al-Baghdadi's longtime colleague.

He then turned to the world's leading jihadist, al-Qaeda leader Ayman a-Zawahiri to settle the dispute. Osama bin Laden's longtime deputy, as is well known, confronted A-Zarqawi over the headlamp and other shock-provoking tactics, and was equally angry with A-Zarqawi's successors.

Photo: AFP

On June 9, 2013, A-Zawahiri issued an open letter in which he ordered the merger to be stopped and reprimanded Al-Baghdi for doing such a thing without consulting him first. He stated that Al-Baghdadi would be on probation for about a year as the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq, after which a-Zawahiri would decide whether to allow him to remain in office or "appoint a new emir."

Finally, to ensure that no battle between the organizations broke out, A-Zawahiri said he was sending a personal envoy to Syria, a senior al-Qaeda statesman named Abu Khalid al-Suri, to mediate any future controversy. "Muslim blood is off limits to other Muslims," ​​he stated. "I urge all my Muslim brothers and Mujahideen to stop debating this matter and stop incitement within the Mujahideen, and to strive for harmony and unity, win the hearts of Muslims and unite the ranks."

It was an unusual public dispute between branches of the al Qaeda network. The brawl continued for months, and Islamist scholars and scholars around the world have taken sides in online forums and talks and debated who is the leader who best represents the future of the movement.

Al-Baghdadi dealt with al-Qaeda's advice just like al-Zarqawi; he ignored it. He issued another proclamation in which he claimed that he only fulfills instructions of higher authority. "I prefer Allah's decree rather than the decree that violates it," he said. Then he went on to inaugurate the Islamic State in Iraq and his United Al-Sham, as if the Jabhat a-Nusra organization did not exist.

√ √ √

Throughout 2013, ISIS gangs have deployed in almost every part of Syria, from the lawless eastern wilderness, through population centers and along the borders of Turkey and Jordan and in the suburbs of Damascus itself. But before the serious attack began, Al Baghdadi had to address some issues within Iraq.

He began a general overhaul of the organization, which included appointing district governors, Shariah advisers and military commanders to oversee operations across Iraq and Syria. The Islamic State functioned like a real government, with flow maps for permits and special departments responsible for social media, logistics, economics, training, recruiting, and even managing the field of suicide mission candidates, separated from the regular fighters to ensure proper indoctrination.

Next, al-Baghdadi intensified the violence within Iraq and released surges of terror attacks, which set a new threshold for massacre of ordinary civilians. In no time, the number of bodies in the morgues in Iraq soared to unprecedented heights since the Zarqawi era: ISIS dispatched suicide bombers to sports halls and soccer stadiums, mosques, cafes and markets.

Even Iraqis, already accustomed to bloodshed, remained stunned when in October 2013 a ISIS recruiter drove a truck to a Nineveh elementary school yard, killing 13 children who were out on recess.

The last step was Operation Al Baghdad to "destroy the gates."It began with experimental action in 2012, when his fighters broke into a small prison near a high city and released a hundred prisoners, half of them former terrorists sentenced to death. Then, on July 21, 2013, ISIS attacked two of the country's largest prisons in simultaneous night raids, which included many suicide bombers and a barrage of dozens of mortar shells. The biggest raid was the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, where more than 500 prisoners were released, many of whom were graduates of the Zarqawi terror network.

Now Al-Baghdad had the basic nucleus he needed to inspire ISIS's army for a renewed vigor. Some of his fighters were already moving to seize control of villages and small settlements in northern Syria and east, and were now joined by fighters for ideological and ideological fights from Iraq's toughest prisons.

Some of the communities they entered were already under the control of other rebel militias, including Jabhat a-Nusra. When ISIS people encountered such forces, they offered three options: join us, try your soul, or fight us. If the local force resisted, they did not hesitate to kill his men.

The rift with Jabhat a-Nusra deepened until it became an abyss. A-Zawahiri's personal peace broker, Abu Khalid al-Suri, remained in Syria for some time, hoping to find a way to end the dispute. In early 2014, he was staying at the headquarters of an Islamist militia in Aleppo, with five people breaking into a building. One of the attackers pulled the trigger on his suicide vest, killing Al-Suri and six others.

No one took responsibility for it, but then al-Qaeda refused to maintain contact with ISIS. For the first time, he ordered his supporters to stay away from ISIS, and even actively oppose the organization's efforts. At that stage it was no longer relevant; al-Baghdadi was now the most experienced and armed fighters in the Syrian opposition. And they were going to be even stronger.

√ √ √

Iraq, the capital of the eastern province of Syria, is a miserable river city with a long history of foreign invasions. The Greeks were the first, followed by the Romans, Persians, Mongolians and Ottomans. Then came the turn of the jihadists.

From mid-spring 2013 to early summer, convoys of ISIS personnel entered white vans. They gradually removed the last Syrian army soldiers and set up the official Syrian headquarters of the terrorist organization. 220,000 Arca residents became the first urban population to live under full control of the Islamic State.

Immediately after the city passed into their hands, they acted quickly to establish the new order. A huge ISIS flag wrapped around the clock tower in al-Jala Square, which was renamed Freedom Square, and the new city rulers began to publish lists of prohibited rules of conduct.

A brave young man, called himself Abu Ibrahim, secretly filmed ISIS's orders. With a pair of partners, he faithfully documented the transformation in the land for the next 18 months, and the photos and videos he distributed online, for the whole world to see.

Abu Ibrahim vividly commemorated ISIS's victory campaign into the city. It opened a week of hard fighting in a built-up area that left dozens of bodies lying in the streets and most of the city's citizens trapped in their homes, afraid that if they left they would be hit by sniper fire. The shops and bakeries closed, and many families ran out of food.

The fighting gradually subsided after ISIS militants fled or exchanged sides. Then, all at once, convoys of foreign fighters appeared - mostly Iraqis, as Abu Ibrahim later understood. ISIS people waved their black flags over the central government buildings and declared Arca as the new capital of the Islamic State.

"They walked around with their weapons and said that now everything would be fine," he said. "They even started evacuating the bodies that were lying in the streets."

Many of the residents of Arka didn't know what to do with this new face at first. Some were relieved that at least the fighting was over. The shops reopened, and the sense of security returned to the city.

Then the executions began.

The first execution Abu Ibrahim witnessed was a young man whom ISIS commanders described as a criminal, though his crime was never known. Sentenced to death, he was forced to stand in the main square in Arka, where his sentence was publicly read. Then he was shot in the head in front of a small crowd, and then the terrorists tied the body's arms to a cruciform, crucifixion, and let it rot in the square for three days.

The second crucifixion occurred a few days later. Then came a group execution, in which the terrorists from ISIS murdered seven men and boys in the same square. Some looked like defeated rival militants, though some were smooth-faced boys. This time the terrorists cut the heads off the bodies and placed them on garden rods in the city. People were scared, which is exactly what they wanted, "Abu Ibrahim said." They wanted everyone to be terrified of them. "

√ √ √

After the new rulers of Aarka declared their intentions to the residents, they began to remove prominent features that challenged their authority. The three churches in the city were locked, and other Christian crosses and symbols were covered or removed. A fancy Shi'ite mosque with a fancy turquoise dome blew up and became ruins. Cigarettes and alcohol - the symbols of Western corruption - were thrown into piles and set on fire.

ISIS fighters then began to create their own symbols. The police station was all painted black and converted to an administrative building and a Sharia court, which ruled on crimes and imposed penalties. The residents of Araqa were suddenly confused by the new regulations imposed by ISIS-based religious police, the Hasaba, who were free to interpret the laws as they found fit.

The new laws began with mandatory religious precepts. For example, all shop owners in the city were required to close the stores during daily prayers. This goes on in matters of clothing and personal behavior. ISIS not only prohibited smoking and drinking, but also played Western music and presented Western clothing in the shop windows. Women could only get out of their homes with full coverage, and even then, every exit involved a humiliating check on the part of the police, who made sure the woman's abdomen was sealed and loose enough to prevent any clue to the woman's body structure.

The penalty for violating ISIS laws ranged from public reprimand or fine to whipping, and worse. Unmarried spouses were beaten to sit together on a garden bench. Another man was publicly punished for marrying her divorced before the three mandatory waiting months ended. According to Abu Ibrahim, any violation of the law entailed an implied threat to a death sentence without appeals, which at times seemed almost capricious.

• For all Sitting Sessions articles

"Sometimes a week or two went by without execution, and then suddenly there were five at once," he said. "Ordinary people were charged with fines and payments for everything: running a business, parking, collecting garbage. ISIS took the money and used it to pay salaries to foreign fighters. And people were afraid to do anything because they feared being executed."

But what most troubled Abu Ibrahim is the way the conquerors treated the city's children. The schools were closed for months after ISIS's takeover of the city, and when it finally opened - everything changed. The old curricula and textbooks - the "heretics' books," according to ISIS - were thrown in the bin and replaced with religious instruction.

Meanwhile, hundreds of orphaned children and boys in the city were taken to military camps to learn how to shoot guns and drive car bombs. Abu Ibrahim saw in military convoys ISIS's new recruits, carrying weapons and wearing large uniforms.

"Some were less than 16," he said. "When the schools were closed they had nothing to do. They saw these tough guys with the Kalashnikovs, and it affected them. They wanted to be part of it."

Meanwhile, ISIS got along well with the army he already had. Several months after announcing their entry into Syria, the Islamic State ranks swelled to nearly 10,000 fighters, including foreign volunteers who had flowed to Syria from 50 countries around the world. Rival rebel organizations, from Jabhat a-Nusra to the secular Free Syrian Army, have complained that ISIS is winning the competition for recruits - not only because they can afford to pay higher salaries, but also claim they are fighting for something bigger than Syria.

Trump: "Baghdad blows himself up scared and whining"

As ISIS's conquest grew, markets in central Arka sometimes looked as if the bearded strangers outnumbered locals. The organization's funds swelled rapidly from dealers 'and bribes' sales and sales of more than 40,000 barrels of crude oil a day, a product of oil wells that ISIS fighters occupied in their advance across the Syrian desert.

Islamic State people became aggressive whenever punishments were to be carried out, but between executions and whipping, Abu Ibrahim saw them making money at restaurants, staring at Western Internet sites in internet cafes or buying Viagra at pharmacies.

On June 5, 2014, ISA's column, which numbered 1,500 people, occupied positions in the Mosul suburbs of Iraq. At noon on June 10, just four days after the attack began, jihadists controlled Mosul Airport and most of the city's central area. They emptied the cash funds from the banks and stripped off millions of dollars worth of Iraqi military weapons and equipment. Then they took over the central Mosul prison, released the Sunni prisoners and eliminated the rest - about 670 Shiites, Kurds and Christians. At the end of the day, Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city was fully ISIS-controlled, with the Iraqi army reorganized and launched a counter-attack, which halted ISIS's progress to Baghdad, though the organization continued to take control of other parts of the country.

By the end of June, the territory controlled by the terrorist organization, which spread from western Syria to central Iraq, was larger than the territories of Israel and Lebanon. The man who now headed this space controlled more than just real estate. He owned oil wells, refineries, hospitals, universities, military bases, factories and banks. Analysts later confirmed that Al-Baghdadi's assets alone were approaching cash and economic tools To the tune of half a billion dollars, there was still no real government in this territory, but in a very real way, Islamists now had their own state.

√ √ √

On July 4, 2014, Friday, the holy day for Muslims, al-Baghdadi appeared accompanied by bodyguards in the chapel of the Great A-Nuri Mosque in Mosul, famous for its subordinate turret, which is slightly inclined in relation to its vertical structure. The local legend tells that the crooked form of the spire was caused by the Prophet Muhammad himself, who passed over him as the sky rose.

Those who attended the prayers on that day may have felt a similar twist of the temporal order, when the Islamic State leader approached the front of the mosque and declared the return of the caliphate. ISIS made a similar announcement a few days earlier, but al-Baghdadi has now made it official, straight from the Minibar - the prayer booth at one of the most sacred sites in Mosul.

He gave much thought to his first public appearance. Every moment was filled with symbolic gestures that the devout knew for sure. Al Baghdadi wore a black robe and turban, reminiscent of Muhammad's attire on the day he delivered his last sermon. He slowly climbed the steps of the Minbar and stopped at each one, to imitate another of Muhammad's habits.

Upstairs, before he started the sermon, he removed Misuak from his pocket, a small carved stick used to clean his teeth, and started cleaning his teeth. Again, an action that calls for a deliberate comparison to Muhammad, who, according to an ancient Hadith, advised his followers to "regularly use Miswak, because it is a cleansing of the mouth and a means of pleasing Allah." Finally, Baghdadi addressed the crowd and made a formal declaration of victory. The caliphate, which the leaders of the organization had aspired to since Zarqawi days, did materialize.

"As for your Mujahideen brothers, Allah gave them the grace of victory and conquest, and after many years of jihad, patience and war against the enemies of Allah, he gave them success and enabled them to achieve their goal," he said. "That is why they were quick to declare the caliphate and appoint Imam, and it is a duty of the Muslims, a duty that has been lost for centuries and absent from reality in the world."

Documentation from Syria: The attack in which ISIS leader was eliminated to Baghdad

In his sermon, and in a separate recorded appeal, Al-Baghdadi claimed that he was not eager to accept what he called "this heavy responsibility." "I am a taxi to be your caregiver, and I am no better than you," he said, but commanded Muslims worldwide to obey him in every matter as Islamic head of state and as responsible for the new order - which non-Muslims, whether they wanted to or not, would have to accept as a reality.

"Today you are the defenders of religion and the guardians of the land of Islam," he stressed. "You will face adversity and epic wars. Indeed, the best place to shed your blood is on the path that leads to the redemption of Muslim prisoners behind the walls of idols. Therefore, prepare your weapons and deceive yourself with piety. Persist in memorizing the Qur'an, understanding its meanings and following its instructions. That's my advice to you. If you stick to it, you will win Rome and become the masters of the world. "

When the sermon was over, al-Baghdad, the caliph on his own, descended the stairs of the Minbar in the same meticulous style. He paused briefly to pray, then stepped outside the mosque with his bodyguards and prepared to fight, then - if Allah wanted - to rule.

shishabat@israelhayom.co.il

The book "Black Flags" was published by Yedioth Books