Al-Baghdadi worried in last days
Beirut, Nov. 6: In his last months on the run, Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was agitated, fearful of traitors, sometimes disguised as a shepherd, sometimes hiding underground, always dependent on a shrinking circle of confidants.
Associates paint a picture of a man obsessed with his security and wellbeing and trying to find safety in towns and deserts in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border as the extremists’ domains crumbled. In the end, the brutal leader, once hailed as ‘caliph’ left former IS areas completely, slipping into hostile territory in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province run by the radical group’s al-Qaedalinked rivals. There, he blew himself up during an Oct. 26 raid by US special forces on his heavily fortified safe house.
For months, he kept a Yazidi teen as a slave, and she recalled how he brought her along as he moved, travelling with a core group of up to seven close associates. Months ago, he delegated most of his powers to a senior deputy who is likely the man announced by the group as his successor.
The Yazidi girl, who was freed in a US-led raid in May, said she stayed for four months at the home of al-Baghdadi’s father-inlaw, Abu Abdullah alZubaie. Al-Baghdadi would visit her there frequently, rape her and at times beat her.
In the spring of 2018, she was given to another man, who took her out of Dashisha. That was the last time she saw alBaghdadi, though he sent her a piece of jewellery as a gift, the teen said.
It appears al-Baghdadi then moved from place to place in eastern Syria as one IS stronghold after another fell to US-backed Kurdish-led forces. During that time, al-Baghdadi was a ‘nervous wreck’, his brother-in-law, Mohamad Ali Sajit, said. — AP