Speaking from an unknown location in the borderland of the Iraqi and Syrian deserts, 47-year-old self-declared leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS] delivered another Bin Laden-like message. When Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. army rangers May 2, 2011 in Abbottabad, Pakistan, his al-Qaeda terror organization lost its voice. No one spewed the terrorist propaganda like Bin Laden, until Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi created ISIS sometime after Bin Laden’s death. Recorded by ISIS’s propaganda outlet al-Furquan Foundation, al-Baghdadi recorded his message for the faithful, after watching ISIS’s infrastructure crumble in key cities and towns in Iraq and Syria. By the time al-Baghdadi declared himself the caliph of all Muslims June 29, 2014, he had completed his blitzkrieg with the help of Saddam Hussein’s leftover military, capturing some 30% of Iraq and Syria’s sovereign land.
Declaring himself the leader of a new Islamic caliphate, al-Baghdadi wielded far more power than Bin Laden, seizing some 30% of Iraq and Syria. When former President Barack Obama pulled U.S. forces out of Iraq Dec. 15, 2011, al-Baghdadi seized on the opportunity to steal Iraq and Syrian land. Bin Laden was content to park al-Qaeda’s mujahedeen on the sovereign land of other nations, not seize territory from fellow Muslims. Al-Baghdadi, on the other hand, answered Bin Laden’s call for worldwide Islamic revolution, seizing land in Iraq and Syria. Obama’s departure from Iraq created the power vacuum needed to allow al-Bagdadi’s militants to seize Iraq’s Kirkuk oil fields, bringing a lucrative source of revenue to al-Baghdadi’s caliphate. When you add to that al-Baghdadi’s unique ability to recruit over the Internet, he created the world’s most deadly terror group.
Aware that the caliphate has lost territory in Raqqa, Syria and Mosul, Iraq, including many surrounding towns and villages, al-Baghdadi tried to rally the faithful after suffering humiliating defeats. Al-Baghdadi calls on the faithful to endure the “hunger and fear” to persevere. “America is going through the worst time in its entire existence,” with Russia challenging it influence, Baghdadi told Muslims around the globe. Al-Baghdadi encouraged “lone wolves in the lands of crusaders in Canada, Europe and elsewhere,” calling on the ISIS faithful to carry out small-scale attacks. “A bullet or as stab or a bomb would be worth a thousand operations. And don’t forget to drive into crowds in the streets,” Baghdadi told the ISIS faithful around the globe, encouraging more terrorism whenever possible. Instead of launching full-scale attacks, ISIS prefers lone-wolf mayhem.
Al-Baghdadi’s new message defies Russian claims that it killed the ISIS leader in air-strikes last Spring. With a $25 million bounty on his head, President Donald Trump is content to deprive ISIS on any safe havens in Iraq and Syria. Al-Baghdadi disputes Trump’s claim that the terror group was “absolutely obliterated.” With recruitment way down, al-Baghdadi’s living on the lam in the uninhabitable Iraq and Syrian desert. His message tries to preserve any possible relevance to a terror group that lost most of its territory and credibility. Telling the faithful to strike Western targets with lone-wolf attacks, al-Baghdadi shows his desperation to remain relevant. Al-Baghdadi’s mujahedeen warriors found out what happens when they’re confronted militarily, leaving al-Badhdadi’s caliphate in shambles. Al-Baghdadi created mayhem in Europe, striking pedestrian malls from Nice to Barcelona, from Paris to Berlin.
Like Bin Laden that eventually got his comeuppance, al-Baghdadi’s days are also numbered, presiding now over nothing more than a perverted ideal. More death, destruction and terrorism won’t bring back al-Baghdadi’s past achievements, taking swaths of Iraqi and Syrian territory. Unlike 2014, when he seized some 30% of Iraq and Syria, al-Baghdadi’s forced to live in the cracks of the Iraqi and Syrian deserts. Always on the run, al-Baghdadi can only dream of what once was, largely due to U.S. forces pulling out of Iraq. Trump has given the U.S. military in the region the order to stop any attempts by ISIS to reconstitute. Terrorism expert Hisham al-Hashimi, with Iraq’s al-Hahrain Center for Strategic Studies, said ISIS has morphed into a covert terror group. Robbed of its illicit oil revenue, ISIS has limited resources to carry out al-Baghdadi’s diabolical terror mission.
Al-Baghdadi’s new message should remind Trump that there’s more work to be done to once-and-for-all destroy’s ISIS’s command-and-control center. Like Bin Laden, as long as ISIS’s leader remains at large, the terror group could once again rise like it did in 2014.”ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] is still revering from a prot-State structure to a covert network.” Al-Baghdadi can only offer hope to ISIS’s some 20,000 to 30,000 recruits. “It’s fragments of territory in the Syrian Arab Republic give it more options and strategic depth on the border,” said al-Hashimi. With Syrian deteriorating into a complicated mess, it’s to the U.S. advantage to maintain close relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, coordinating as much as possible to make sure ISIS never again rises from the ashes. Maintaining U.S. presence in Iraq and Syria is critical to keeping ISIS at bay.
