Free Republic

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....

Insurgents Surface in Streets of Samarra SAMARRA, Iraq - Gunmen carrying flags of Iraq (news - web sites)'s most feared terror group surfaced in force in the central Iraqi city of Samarra on Tuesday for the first time since U.S. troops briefly entered it in a deal with tribal leaders that the Americans had portrayed as a success story in battling the insurgency. Dozens of masked gunmen carrying automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades drove through the main streets of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, in about 20 vehicles. Some carried the black flags of Iraq's most-feared terror organization, Tawhid...