Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

From Michael Koziol, at the Sydney Morning Herald, "Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi shows why he's the world's most dangerous man":

Baghdadi was an AQI commander who evaded US capture in Iraq and later moved into Syria. There has been a $US10 million bounty on his head since 2011, and Time magazine labelled him "the world's most dangerous man".

ISIL fighters are a major component of the rebels fighting Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria. The Economist has described the group as "one of the best-equipped and funded militias on the ground", with perhaps 7000 fighters.

It is a hardline, Sunni Muslim militia that kills civilians without much care. Its brutality has alienated ISIL from other rebels fighting the Assad regime. It seeks a single Islamic state under sharia, not just in Syria but across the Levant and in Iraq. On Tuesday it conquered Mosul, Iraq's second-biggest city of almost 2 million, which stands about 114 kilometres from the Syrian border in the north of Iraq.

More.

And at Flopping Aces, "ISIS Terror Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Was Released by Obama From Camp Bucca in 2009."