Baghdadi died near a small town in rural northwest Syria, more than 1,000 kilometres from his home region of Samarra in western Iraq. But it was Camp Bucca — later dubbed “the University of Jihad” — where Baghdadi came of age as a militant. The elusive Baghdadi was the subject of an international manhunt, and the US placed a $25 million bounty on his head. Baghdadi was raised in a family divided between a religious clan and officers loyal to late Saddam Hussein’s secular Baath party. Years later, his militant group incorporated ex-Baathists, capitalising on the bitterness many officers felt after the American move to dissolve the Iraqi army in 2003.

Source: The Express Tribune October 27, 2019 18:33 UTC