He was not a kind man by all accounts. His biography intimidated many people by its sheer appeal to butchery. A man who knew Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in his younger days did not paint him as a lover of human company. “He was quiet and retiring…He spent time alone…no one really noticed him.” The man of terror did not enjoy a quiet death, was not alone but was noticed worldwide for his barbarism.
Baghdadi was cornered by a commando raid of the United States Special Forces: The 75th Ranger Regiment and Delta Force. The target, according to reports, scurried away in a cowardly run with two of his children as he was chased by a vicious military dog into a cave where he detonated his suicide vest. The raid and suicide culminated a painstaking plan that involved other forces, including the Kurds. Combing air and ground sorties, the U.S. Special Forces, surrounded the zealot at his residence in Syria’s north eastern Idlib Province.
U.S. President Donald Trump exhaled with a gloating tongue, saying he “died like a dog.” Baghdadi was a fierce man. He occasionally appeared for broadcast in his jihadist tunic and beard and eyes that shone with savage portent. His rhetoric was combative, iced over with contempt and bloodlust. He disguised his barbarism in a brand of Islam that celebrated all forms of human suffering. They included hacking, stoning, and burning of their victims, who were usually those who did not yield to their version of Islam, which harked back to a warped narrative of Islamic purity.
This killing of Baghdadi happened barely eight years after another such villain, Osama Bin Laden, was despatched by U.S. Special forces in Pakistan, also after great and meticulous planning. Baghdadi had reacted to Osama’s death with a vow of vengeance. He was manically true to his word.
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The man who was quiet and retiring became, perhaps, the world’s most feared man. He was a serial rapist, and kept a harem of sex slaves. That was because he had seen himself as the head of a worldwide religious theocracy called the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL).
He became the caliph once ISIL was launched. He challenged the powers of the world, and even the cultural liberalism of the west. In countries like the U.S., United Kingdom, France and even Belgium, the contours of ISIL’s map have stirred fear. The militants have captivated young men and women who travelled there as recruits of the caliphate’s army. There have been weddings among them while they struck their families back home with heartbreaks and bewilderment.
ISIL under Baghdadi was not just a militia threat but also a cultural menace. As for its violence, the story was one of massive armies of occupation. They conquered territories after territories, organised kidnappings, executions, sexual predation, genocide, including the well-recorded story of the Yazidis. They made a flourish of their power in parading the victims on videos with graphic beheadings.
He also took credits for bomb blasts and shootings of his followers in Europe, especially in France and Belgium, and struck fear to western self-comforts in their marquee spots of their cities. He expected to do more harm before he was killed. His successor, Abu Ibrahim al KashimialQurayshi, is little known, but he has boasted to continue the blood trails of his predecessor. The killing of leaders like Baghdadi tends to be no more than symbolic because he left behind a well-organised legacy of hate.
That is why the celebration of his death is brief. But Nigeria ought to learn from the U.S. for its rigour of planning, discipline in execution and collaboration with forces that could help. We lack all these in the fight against Boko Haram, and that is why our fight is futile so far.
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