"Better to be feared than loved"
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| Kayla Mueller was reportedly raped by the Islamic State's vile leader |
When introducing himself to people, al-Baghdadi covers his face with a scarf and does not allow photographs of himself to be circulated or videos to be distributed widely, like other terrorist leaders, including those of Al-Qaeda. This is also calculated. Jiyad says his earlier photographs, one taken when he was in prison in 2004 and one released by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior—“show an ambitious terrorist, not a caliph.”
Jiyad, who has analyzed audio recordings of al-Baghdadi, says they show that his dealings with other terrorist groups, such as Jabhat al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda, “show that he views himself as superior and has a hint of disdain for non-Iraqis.”
Above all, says Jiyad, al-Baghdadi seems to be a man who revels in his position “as the world’s top terrorist, who sees himself as a successor to Osama bin Laden.”
“Once you remove the mystique and grandeur, the ‘caliph’ turns out to be a rather ordinary man who saw his opportunity and took it,” says Jiyad. “He is no different from the hundreds of other Iraqis who attempted to destroy the new Iraq. He could have ended up as a faceless terrorist or a violent criminal. And now he finds himself the center of the world’s attention.” newsweek
"unfortunately once you destroy one terrorist mastermind another one pops up"
