Jul 14, 2014

Afghan sources have provided new information on the elusive leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, also now known as Caliph Ibrahim. According to these accounts, Baghdadi spent several years in Afghanistan working with the Arab jihadist community and the Taliban. Baghdadi apparently went to Afghanistan in the late 1990s with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian who founded al-Qaeda in Iraq after the US-led invasion in 2003. It was Zarqawi's group that would later evolve into the Islamic State.

Zarqawi, whose real name was Ahmad Fadil al-Khalayilah, had been a petty criminal known for his cruelty. Born in 1966, he spent several years in Jordanian prisons, where he was radicalized in the 1980s, becoming an Islamic extremist. Once freed, between 1989 and 1992 he fought with the Afghan mujahedeen against the Soviet-backed communist regime in Kabul before returning to Jordan.

The Jordanians again arrested Zarqawi, in 1994, for plotting against King Hussein's peace treaty with Israel. His trial for anti-Hashemite, subversive activities made him famous. After five years in prison, Zarqawi was released in a general amnesty when Hussein died and was succeeded by his son, King Abdullah II, in February 1999.

Zarqawi went back to Afghanistan, which is when he and Baghdadi reportedly began to live and work together. Afghan sources recall that they were close partners. Zarqawi established an Arab group called Jund al-Sham (Army of Syria) and received considerable assistance from Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. The group operated in Kabul and Herat.

Zarqawi's group planned a major terror attack, targeting big hotels and biblical tourist sites in Jordan on the eve of the millennium. The Jordanian intelligence service uncovered the plot in December 1999, and Zarqawi was indicted in absentia for masterminding it. What role Baghdadi played in the plot is unknown, but it seems likely that he was involved.