Written off caliph: was the al-Baghdadi project invented in the USA?
Discrepancies in the eliminated “number one terrorist”s biography
Americans have recently reported on the elimination of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi — the head of ISIS terrorist organisation. The banned group itself confirmed this information later. The details of this military operation are shrouded in mist. In a column written for Realnoe Vremya, Middle Eastern journalist Anhar Kochneva studies the “number one terrorist’”s rich biography and draws a parallel between him and the previous key villain’s life — Osama bin Laden. The columnist doesn’t exclude that both characters were closely linked with the American establishment.
American déjà vu
The 27 October morning began with a sensation. All world and regional mass media rushed to tell their audience about the killing of one of the most famous rebel leaders in the world, the character who is worldwide known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He “worked” as the emir of the faithful and head of the Islamic State (Editor’s Note: ISIS, the organisation is banned in Russia), coined gold dinars, burned Jordan pilots, pressed Syrian soldiers with tanks and gathered thugs from all over the world under his black flags.
However, there was some déjà vu because of the performance staged in front of TV viewers. This had already happened somewhere… The most wanted… who had been a fugitive for many years… And he had also been caught in the middle of the night together with his family members by valiant American special forces. Later he was thrown into the blue sea — probably as useless, and as if nothing had happened.
What is characteristic is that the previous villain (Osama bin Laden) whose body was thrown into the sea by valiant American special forces too, in fact, was raised by the USA. As well as the previous characters of the recent political show. He was spoiled and cosseted, financed and provided as opposition to the limited contingent of the Soviet army in Afghanistan. Until he declared war on his ex-benefactors and allies.
The new “bogeyman” and “number one terrorist” who was to frighten and, ideally, get rid of the secular government in disobedient Syria first appeared in public at a meeting of the “Syrian opposition” (against which his units would be fighting soon) with now-deceased Senator McCain somewhere in Turkey in May 2013. The caliph-to-be didn’t have a long beard and inclination to theatrical window dressing yet — all this appeared in the next acts of the play. As well as his big name (or, more precisely, his pseudonym).
According to the script
The mass media that had their own investigations claim that the future ruler of the Muslims who was born in 1971 near the Iraqi town of Samarra, which is famous for its spiral minaret built under the Abbasids in the middle of the 9th century) was officially named Ibrahim al-Badri. In general he had the right to be named Abu Bakr later if he called his elder son Bakr. Abu Bakr is Bakr’s father. This usual Arab nickname is often given to mature family men without even knowing (not using in everyday life) the name given to this person by his parents at birth. But al-Baghdadi (that’s to say, from Baghdad) didn’t have the special right to be named this way — he was born in Samarra, that’s to say, he is al-Samarri, and no other way. Yes, he can be called Iraqi, but not Baghdadi. But somebody who supervised this project demonstrated an exceptional affection for beautiful effects at this stage already.
Later, absolutely everything became “creative”. Especially the scenes of terrifying executions of “enemies of Islam and the Islamic State” that were obviously shot with professional directors. There is plenty of cameras in different angles, a slow “cinematographic” descent of cells with the poor in orange uniforms into the water to be drowned, setting fire to living people, mining heads of a group of people with the subsequent simultaneous explosion, and even the explosion of the miserable antique Temple of Baalshamin in Palmyra, which was mined for long in a video and then turned into dust. There was already a feeling that the creators couldn’t finish such a blockbuster with something banal. But the final was postponed for some reason. Like, however, it was in case of the already mentioned predecessor of the current character Osama bin Laden (Editor’s Note: founder of Al-Qaeda banned in Russia).
As witnesses showed, from 2004 to 2009, the future emir was kept in Camp Bucca in Iraq (the camp bore the name of the firefighter who died in New York on 11 September 2001) for his anti-American activity where he was probably re-recruited. The “ordinary captive” left Bucca on plane. And later he “came to surface” in photos from the above-mentioned meeting of the American “eagle” with those who the USA wanted to see as the leader of the SAR very much. The USA and its allies’ stake in “Syrian opposition” didn’t justify itself. The former enemy of America came in handy then who became the face of the new project designed to change power in Syria and a part of the territory of Iraq at once, which was to divide into three separate states according to the famous American New Middle East plan.
Caliph by the hour
However, this project, which had been staggeringly successful at first, failed. And the enlarged territory of the new state began to shrink like Balzac’s The Skin of Sorrow. The Iraqi army and militia as well as Syrian troops and their allies including Russia and Iran “took a bite” of the New Caliphate one by one. Moreover, in fact, all claims about the control of the IS over huge spaces concealed that most of these territories were inhabited and lifeless Middle Eastern deserts.
The “caliphate” partially moved to the territory of Afghanistan — the world drug supplier because it wasn’t possible to make a profit from slave trade, bank robbery and so on as well as contraband artefacts of Syria and Iraq in the new conditions any more. Nothing was heard about the fate of “Baghdadi” himself for quite a long time. Journalists and political experts from all over the world asked from time to time if he was alive in general. Nevertheless, there was information in February 2018 that he was seriously injured and almost died.
The information about his life appeared rarely and was fragmented. He was seen in Libya or Turkey or somewhere else. Suddenly in 2018, a video with yesterday’s “caliph” that was shot nobody knows where arose: an absolutely grey beard that hadn’t been dyed for long with henna (at the age of 47), lost glance, the absence of recent firm build and gloss. Such changes don’t come out of anything.
This is why I will dare to assume that he was “written off”. And now he can really be dead. Moreover, a message about the arrest of his sister with her family in Turkey was received on 5 November already — it seems that they have no place to hide in now.
However, some analysts think that the notorious campaign of the US special forces that was described in detail and colour by Donald Trump himself from the high rostrum was just an operation to distract the world public attention from the next American agent. Wasn’t the city and the world shown the body of the person about whom the US government promised millions for any information for a reason? The ex-caliph is now probably sitting together with bin Laden in a villa in the mountains or in a Texas rancho and laughing calling themselves by new names invented by the same supervisors. And they are discussing how to better spend the compensation they received as an award for service to the Empire of the Good. Everything is possible. Moreover, the Russian Ministry of Defence categorically denies the appearance of helicopters and other “allied” aviation in that region. As the authors of The X-Files series assure, the truth is out there.