Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, born 1971, is the leader of a religion based terrorist organization and Death Cult known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), or simply IS.

He graduated with a master’s degree in Islamic studies from the Iraqi University in Baghdad, now known as the Islamic University of Iraq and later acquired a doctoral degree in Sharia.

Baghdadi was held by US forces in an Iraq detention centre for ten months in 2004 as a civilian internee.

According to official documents, Baghdadi is married to two women who gave birth to his six children. His first wife, Asma Fawzi Mohammed al-Kubeisi, his first cousin, is the mother of five children and Israa Rajab Mahal al-Qaisi his second wife is the mother of his sixth child.

American humanitarian aid worker Ms Kayla Mueller aged 26, an IS captured hostage, who’s death was confirmed in February 2015, was “taken as a wife” by Baghdadi and was repeatedly raped and sexually abused by him.

Details were released in June 2015 after extensive checking and were confirmed by other female hostages, being kept as sex slaves, who shared captivity with Mueller and managed to escape.

Along with Mueller other female teenage hostages were kept for some time in a house and compound controlled by Abu Sayyaf an IS financier who was killed in a Special Forces raid on the compound. Umm Sayyaf, his wife, also confirmed the rape and abuse of Mueller by Baghdadi each time he visited the compound.

Many female hostages, as well as recruited and then disillusioned “Jihadi Brides”, who have escaped from IS have reported widespread sexual abuse including girls as young as ten.

Umm Sayyaf, aged 24, who lead an all women section of IS responsible for keeping the female hostages for use as sex slaves, and recruiting “Jihadi Brides” for sexual comfort of IS fighters, was captured and is currently awaiting trial in Iraq.) ⁴

Baghdadi had a US government $10 million reward for his capture or death - this has been increased and is now $25 million.

ISIS is a terrorist organization / insurgency that has a goal of establishing an Islamic state known as a caliphate (Islamic government) lead by a caliph - a person considered a political and religious successor to the prophet Muhammad and a leader of the entire Muslim community. As such Baghdadi claims to have traced his ancestry back to the prophet Muhammad and therefore has the right to be caliph. This is considered absolute nonsense by the Islamic community at large, but is effective as propaganda for his followers.

All of the most influential jihadist theorists criticize the Islamic State as deviant, calling its self-proclaimed caliphate null and void, indeed not only that but also a totally un-Islamic organization.

The civil war in Syria and the subsequent lack of effective government in both Syria and Iraq gave ISIS the opportunity to mobilize an insurgency and take over large parts of Syria and surrounding areas. The effects of ISIS occupation on the areas that they control has been catastrophic.

ISIS promotes an extreme interpretation of Islam, promotes religious violence, adheres to global jihadist principals and regards all those who do not agree with its beliefs as infidels.

It aims to return to the early days of Islam, rejecting all innovations in the religion, which it believes corrupts its original spirit by deviating from what it calls pure Islam.¹

As such Christians and others living in areas under ISIS control who want to remain in their homes face three options: converting to Islam, paying a none-Islamic religious tax to maintain their freedom, or death. Basically - believe as we do, pay us, or we will kill you.

There have been many reports of the group's use of death threats, torture and mutilation to compel conversion to Islam, and of clerics being killed for refusal to pledge allegiance to ISIS. Amnesty International has held ISIS responsible for the ethnic cleansing of ethnic and religious minority groups in northern Iraq on a "historic scale". In many areas that have been recaptured after ISIS occupation, mass graves of civilians have been discovered, including women and children.

ISIS issued guidelines on how to wear clothes and veils, warning women in the city of Mosul to wear full-face veils or face severe punishment. In addition ISIS has banned the sale and use of alcohol, banned the sale and use of cigarettes and hookah pipes, banned music and songs in cars, at parties, in shops and in public, as well as banning photographs of people in shop windows. The group uses its two battalions of female fighters to enforce compliance by women with its strict laws on individual conduct.²

Recently ISIS announced its belief that it is fighting the final war which will trigger the events leading up to Armageddon (the arrival of Jesus as a Muslim to lead all Christians and Jews to embrace Islam etc.), followed by God bringing about the end of the world and the Day of Judgement.

Whilst stating its belief to be the agency to enable these end of world prophesies, ISIS is killing all and sundry in its path in the most brutal way by carrying out executions on both men and women who were accused of various acts and found guilty of crimes against Islam such as homosexuality, adultery, watching pornography, usage and possession of contraband, rape, blasphemy, renouncing Islam and murder. (Yet apparently IS fighters who commit rape of hostages, and murder, are somehow excluded from guilt/punishment?) ⁴

Before the accused are executed their charges are read toward them and the spectators. Executions take various forms, including stoning to death, crucifixions, beheading, burning people alive, and throwing people from tall buildings.

ISIS is destroying all cultural heritage it comes across in a program of cultural cleansing, in order to erase all historical identity, because they know that if there is no identity, there is no memory, there is no history.²

It has used bulldozers to crush buildings and archaeological sites, Christian churches and non-Sunni mosques have been destroyed or converted to other uses. At the same time ISIS is cynically selling historical works of art (which by its beliefs should be destroyed) to raise funds for weaponry.

Update April 2019 at bottom of page.

EDUCATION AND INDOCTRINATION

School curriculum

Wherever it has full control ISIS has implemented a sharia school curriculum which bans the teaching of art, music, science, geography, history, literature, Christianity, Darwinism and sports, basically leaving only reading, writing, arithmetic and religious studies.

In other schools ISIS has instructed that subjects are heavily curtailed. Patriotic songs have been declared blasphemous, and orders have been given to remove certain pictures from school textbooks.

The following are extracts from ISIS instructions to school teachers in Syria:-

• Remove reference to the Syrian Arab Republic wherever found and replace with the Islamic State.

• Blur all textbook images that do not agree with Islamic law.

• Delete the Syrian Arab anthem wherever it is found.

• Do not teach patriotism or nationalism but of belonging to Islam

• Replace the words, home, homeland, national or Syria wherever found with Islamic State, Muslim country, jurisdiction of Sham etc.

• Delete any example in mathematics that relates to usury, democracy or election.

• Delete from science anything to do with the theory of creation, and restore all creation to Almighty God.

• Alert students that the laws of chemistry and physics are the laws of God in creation.

Wherever possible parents have largely boycotted schools in which the new curriculum has been introduced.

Indoctrination and abuse of children.

ISIS has recruited Iraqi children as young as nine to its ranks, who can be seen with masks on their faces and guns in their hands patrolling the streets of Mosul.³

According to a report by the magazine Foreign Policy, children as young as six are recruited or kidnapped and sent to military and religious training camps, where they practice beheading with dolls and are indoctrinated with the religious views of ISIS. Children are also used as human shields on front lines and to provide blood transfusions for Islamic State soldiers.

ISIS is specifically grooming children for the future. An ISIS spokesman told VICE News that those under the age of 15 go to sharia camp to learn about religion, while those older than 16 can go to military training camp.

The main aim of ISIS is to brainwash students with a bombardment of religious fanaticism, and push them towards extremism by forcing them to read books like Aljhad-Hadith-Sharia, which preaches a warped and vicious version of Islam. The children are blitzed with religious fallacies and this, together with their natural curiosity towards ISIS beheading those it calls infidels, is very serious.

"The books and curriculum being pushed in schools will indoctrinate the entire population into a new generation of extremists. ISIS will brainwash them one way or another, while the teachers stand by, powerless to stop them. ISIS is fighting for a return to the Stone Age – and they will take thousands of children with them".

¹Note the similarity with Pol Pot’s communist Khmer Rouge vision of Year Zero.

²Note the similarity with Mao Zedong’s communist Red Guards actions during the Cultural Revolution.

³Note the similarity with Pol Pot’s communist Khmer Rouge use of uneducated indoctrinated youth.

⁴ The raid in Syria, which resulted in the death of Islamic State top financial official Abu Sayyaf and the capture of his wife, netted seven terabytes of data in the form of computer hard drives, thumb drives, CDs, DVDs and papers.

The group of documents reviewed by Reuters - entitled "Lessons Learned from the Abu Sayyaf Raid" - show how the Islamic State has provided a legal justification to its followers for a range of practices.

"Fatwa Number 64" dated January 29, 2015, provides detailed rules for rape, prescribing when Islamic State men can and cannot have sexual intercourse with female slaves.

Islamic State has sanctioned the harvesting of human organs in a previously undisclosed ruling by the group's Islamic scholars in Fatwas 61, 62 and 64-68, raising concerns that the violent extremist group may be trafficking in body parts.

The ruling, contained in a January 31, 2015 document reviewed by Reuters, says taking organs from a living captive to save a Muslim's life, even if it is fatal for the captive, is permissible.

Reuters couldn't independently confirm the authenticity of the document. U.S. officials say it was among the trove of data and other information obtained from the raid. The document does not offer any proof that Islamic State actually engages in organ harvesting or organ trafficking. But it does provide religious sanction for doing so under the group's harsh interpretation of Islam - which is rejected by most Muslims. Previously, Iraq has accused Islamic State of harvesting human organs and trafficking them for profit.

The document does not define "apostate," though the Islamic State has killed or imprisoned non-Muslims, such as Christians, and Shiite Muslims, as well as Sunni Muslims who don't follow its extremist views.

Reuters 25 Dec 2015

Update April 2019.

The ISIS caliphate in Syria has been destroyed and ISIS no longer controls any area of Syria or anywhere else. ISIS was destroyed due to military might brought about by the worlds major powers. Huge numbers of civilians died during the 4 years of war and most of the areas, towns and cities once occupied by ISIS are now nothing more than ruins.

ISIS has now reverted to an Islamic terrorist organisation and is currently carrying out atrocities wherever it can. At this time its main focus appears to be in Africa and Asia with an objective of replacing / bolstering previous Al Qaeda areas of operation. Recent activity relates to Burkina Faso and Mali and this month the appalling suicide attacks in Sri Lanka.

Baghdadi, not seen since 2014, this month released a video of himself urging his followers, despite their huge losses, to continue to fight the jihad war of attrition against "tyrants", and promising more battles to come.

The reward for his capture or death now stands at US$ 25 million.

Additionally this week, Human Rights Lawyer Amal Clooney representing Yazidi women and girls previously held in captivity by Um Sayyaf as sex slaves to be raped by ISIS men, has requested that Um Sayyaf be transferred to the USA to stand trial for her crimes. After her capture and interrogation Um Sayyaf was handed over to Iraqi Kurds to stand trial and is currently being held in detention awaiting trial in an undisclosed location.

Update October 2019

On October 27th 2019 America announced that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was dead. He died during an American Special Forces raid on a hideout near the Turkish / Syrian border. Attempting to escape via an underground tunnel he came to the tunnels dead end. He had 3 children with him. According to reports he was "whimpering, screaming and crying" and died like a coward. He detonated a suicide vest killing himself and the 3 children.

Charles

I have taken the liberty of paraphrasing below sections from "Afloat" by Guy de Maupassant 1880, which I think are apt relating to ISIS

They will ever continue to live lives born down by old prejudices, the ferocious ideas of their barbarous forefathers, for they are but animals, and shall long remain animals.

They venerate war and death, become slaughtering geniuses, exclaiming that war is holy and of divine authority – their ignorance is legion.

They are of no earthly use to any one, live like brutes in a continual besotment, pillage towns, burn villages, rape women and children, ruin nations, shed lakes of blood, cover plains with pounded flesh mingled with bloody earth; pile up heaps of slain; have arms and legs blown off, brains scattered without benefit to any one, and finally perish while their parents, wives and children are dying of hunger; this is what they call religion!

They are the scourge of the earth.

We struggle against nature and ignorance; against obstacles of all kinds, in order to lessen the hardships of our existence. Men, benefactors, scholars wear out their lives toiling, seeking what may assist, what may help, what may solace their brethren. Eager in their work, they pile up discovery on discovery, enlarging the human mind, extending science, adding something each day to the stock of human knowledge, to the welfare, the comfort, the strength of their people.

War is declared by the fanatics and within months the efforts of generations of patience and genius have been destroyed. What have they ever achieved these warriors and purveyors of death? Nothing but pain, misery and destruction!

What have they ever done that shows any semblance of intelligence? The inventor of the wheelbarrow has done more for humanity than all of these death merchants together.

And what is their intention should they win? Simply to deny education, freedom, democracy; and force a return to, and continuance of, the prejudiced, barbarous beliefs of their forefathers, whilst continuing to live the lives of the animals that they are.

Charles

A Simple Explanation For Everything

When the Syrians came down like a wolf on the fold,

Ahab of Israel sharpened his sword,

And soon the Jordan was running with blood.

Why did they Kill?

They killed for the Lord.

When Muhammad ran off to Medina, he swore

He would roar back to Mecca, this time with a horde

Of warriors thirsting for infidel gore.

Why did they Kill?

They killed for the Lord.

When the Pope's Inquisition put thousands in chains,

Their bodies were broken and branded and gored,

And the innocent perished in spasms of pain.

Why did they Kill?

They killed for the Lord.

When Puritans filled all New England with dread,

Hunting down women whose thoughts they abhorred,

They strung up the witches until they were dead.

Why did they Kill?

They killed for the Lord.

Now our Born-Agains tell us God gives them the word:

Send infidels off to their blazing reward!

So far-away rivers are running with blood.

Why are we killing?

We kill for the Lord.

Philip D. Appleman

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