A man purported to be the reclusive leader of the militant Islamic State Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi making what would have been his first public appearance, at a mosque in the centre of Iraq's second city, Mosul, according to a video recording posted on the Internet on... REUTERS/Social Media Website via Reuters TV/File Photo
Itai Zehorai, Forbes: Is ISIS Bankrupt?
While remaining one of the biggest threats to the world, ISIS has suffered a loss of territory and is in financial decline.
Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIS’s founder and spiritual leader, knew exactly what he was doing when he chose to make his first (and only) public appearance on video in the A-Nur Mosque in Mosul in July, 2014. During his notorious sermon at the Friday prayer in the ancient, mosque's marbled pulpit, the father of ISIS proclaimed the establishment of the first Islamic caliphate since 1924. Al-Baghadi, a long-time terrorist in the blood-soaked arena of the Middle East, with a deep sense of history and a killer instinct for public relations, scored a complete knockout in the fight for minds with a triumphant narrative.
Within days, his image at the mosque burned itself into the collective consciousness as the most symbolic event of ISIS’s sweeping victory in Iraq, and evincing the vicious terrorist organization's apex of power - the same murderous organization destined in the years to come to sow fear and dread among millions across the globe; and to write a new, dark chapter in the short history of the 21st century.
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WNU editor: This author`s analysis is spot on ....
.... As this article goes to press, the organization stands beaten and destitute. The pressure on it from the coalition and the big powers continues to grow. Some optimistic experts now predict that the Islamic state will cease to exist by the end of the year. But even if “the end of the fake ISIS state,” as al-Abadi has termed it, is closer than ever – the idea itself is very much alive and still beats strong in a multitude of hearts. The terrorist state that it built has in truth no real borders and its great achievement (all too tragically) is measured not by the territories that it captured but by the minds that it conquered, and even if the jihadist organization has been defeated, the idea of jihad is far from beaten.
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