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Appearing Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice said she was “quite confident” that the Trump administration did not follow the “normal protocol” of informing President Barack Obama about the weekend killing of Islamic State (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was once held by the US in Camp Bucca Iraq. But the Obama administration shut down the Bucca prison camp and released its prisoners, including al-Baghdadi in 2009. The Telegraph reported: The FBI “most wanted” mugshot shows a tough, swarthy figure, his hair in a jailbird crew-cut. The $10 million price on his head, meanwhile, suggests that whoever released him from US custody four years ago may now be regretting it… …Well-organised and utterly ruthless, the ex-preacher is the driving force behind al-Qaeda’s resurgence throughout Syria and Iraq, putting it at the forefront of the war to...

Baghdad (AFP) - Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the enigmatic self-proclaimed "caliph" of a state straddling Iraq and Syria, is increasingly seen as more powerful than Al-Qaeda's chief. The leader of the powerful Islamic State (IS) militant group was on June 29 declared "caliph" in an attempt to revive a system of rule that ended nearly 100 years ago with the fall of the Ottoman Empire. In a video posted online on Saturday, purportedly the first known footage of Baghdadi, he ordered Muslims to obey him during a Ramadan sermon delivered at a mosque in the northern militant-held Iraqi city of Mosul.

The FBI “most wanted” mugshot shows a tough, swarthy figure, his hair in a jailbird crew-cut. The $10 million price on his head, meanwhile, suggests that whoever released him from US custody four years ago may now be regretting it. Taken during his years as a detainee at the US-run Camp Bucca in southern Iraq, this is the only known photograph of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the new leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria. But while he may lack the photogenic qualities of his hero, Osama bin Laden, he is fast becoming the new poster-boy for the global jihadist movement....

In June, we learned that the head of ISIS, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, had been in US custody but was released in 2009 when President Obama closed down Camp Bucca in preparation for the US withdrawal of troops (yes, the withdrawal he repeatedly denies having anything to do with) from Iraq. ... Abu Duaa was connected to the intimidation, torture and murder of local civilians in Qaim,’ according to a 2005 U.S. intelligence report. He would kidnap individuals or entire families, accuse them, pronounce sentence and then publicly execute them ... ISIS’ acts of unmatched evil include burying women and...

Emboldened by its success in Syria and Iraq, al-Qaeda is widening its reach There’s a name that you should remember: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the commander of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), whose fighters now control large swaths of Iraq. There are few photos of al-Baghdadi, and even fewer details about his life are well-known. But as Iraq is engulfed by conflict and the country’s second largest city fell to Sunni extremists, the influence of Islamic terrorism’s newest star is set to grow. TIME’s International Editor Bobby Ghosh explains the danger behind al-Baghdadi’s rise to power, and what...

Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, the shadowy jihadist fighting in Iraq and Syria, and newly declared leader of a “caliphate” encompassing all Muslims, is increasingly seen as more powerful than Al Qaida’s chief. SNIP In October 2005, American forces said they believed they had killed “Abu Dua,” one of Baghdadi’s known aliases, in a strike on the Iraq-Syria border. But that appears to have been incorrect, as he took the reins of what was then known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) in May 2010 after two of its chiefs were killed in a US-Iraqi raid. SNIP

The Telegraph reported: The FBI “most wanted” mugshot shows a tough, swarthy figure, his hair in a jailbird crew-cut. The $10 million price on his head, meanwhile, suggests that whoever released him from US custody four years ago may now be regretting it… …Well-organised and utterly ruthless, the ex-preacher is the driving force behind al-Qaeda’s resurgence throughout Syria and Iraq, putting it at the forefront of the war to topple President Bashar al-Assad and starting a fresh campaign of mayhem against the Western-backed government in Baghdad. On Tuesday, his forces achieved their biggest coup in Iraq to date, seizing control...