Leader of radical Sunni fighters is a rising star of global jihad

The leader of radical Sunni fighters who have made rapid military advances in Iraq is the rising star of global jihad, driven, Islamist fighters say, by an unbending determination to fight for and establish a hardline Islamic state.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, commander of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), now controls large parts of eastern Syria and western Iraq, a vast cross-border haven for militants in the Sunni Muslim core of the Middle East.

Despite his power — and a $10m US reward for information leading to his capture — little is known about a man who for his own survival has shunned the spotlight.

Fighters from ISIL and its rivals praised Baghdadi as a strategist who succeeded in exploiting turmoil in Syria and Iraq’s weak central authority after the US military withdrawal to carve out his powerbase.

He has proved ruthless in eliminating opponents and showed no hesitation in turning against former allies to further his ambitions.

Enemies are usually shot or decapitated, their deaths recorded in grisly videos which inspire fear and revulsion among opponents.

“For Sheikh Baghdadi, each religion has its state except Islam, and it should have a state and it should be imposed. It is very simple,” said one of his non-Syrian members.

According to the US reward notice Baghdadi was born in the Iraqi town of Samarra in 1971. He got a doctorate in Islamic studies at Baghdad university, jihadi websites say, and after years of fighting with al-Qaeda groups became leader of its Islamic State in Iraq in 2010.

A year later, sensing opportunity when the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad erupted, Baghdadi sent an aide across the border to expand al-Qaeda’s foothold there.

That aide, Abu Mohammad al-Golani, set up al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front which quickly rose to prominence with a series of deadly car bombings. It also earned a reputation as the most effective of the many disparate forces fighting Assad.

Baghdadi’s fighters control the city of Raqqa, Syria’s only provincial capital completely beyond Assad’s control, and have imposed strict Islamic law.