From AQI to the Islamic State in Iraq

Killed in a raid by US special forces in June 2006, Zarqawi did not live to see the creation of his Islamic state. Months later, Zarqawi’s successors, Abu Umar al-Baghdadi (not to be confused with ISIS’ future leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi) and Abu Ayoub al-Masri, declared the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) on 15 October 2006.[1] Iraq remained highly unstable; the insurgency had flared up following Zarqawi’s death, with the subsequent year among the deadliest in terms of both Iraqi civilian casualties and US military losses.[2] The violence and ideological conservatism of the newly created ISI, however, alienated the Sunni population. During the so-called “Sunni Awakening,” Sunni tribes from western Iraq’s Anbar province allied with the US while it implemented a troop surge that brought around 30,000 new forces into Iraq to quell spiralling sectarian violence.[3] The alliance proved successful: by 2008, the rate of civilian casualties had dropped significantly, and over the next years, ISI’s leadership was gradually depleted.[4] In April 2010, both Abu Umar al-Baghdadi and Masri were killed by American and Iraqi soldiers, and in the following months, 34 other ISI leaders would be eliminated.[5]

Their deaths opened the door for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to become the ISIS’s leader. Born Ibrahim Awwad al-Badri to a lower middle-class family in Samarra, Iraq, he had been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1990s and a doctoral student in Qur’anic recitation. By the time of the US-led invasion of Iraq, Badri had embraced Salafi-jihadism, the extreme form of Sunni Islamism committed to establishing an Islamic state that derives from a literalist interpretation of the Quran.[6] After the invasion, he led a militant group in Diyala province, where he had worked as a preacher, until he was captured in late 2004 while visiting an acquaintance in Fallujah.[7] He was transferred to Camp Bucca, the American detention camp where various leaders of Iraq’s jihadist movement would be imprisoned—including at least nine of the top future leaders of ISIS.[8]

After his release, Badri joined AQI. When ISI was declared, he became head of the Shari’a committees in the Iraqi provinces. [9] Soon, he was promoted to the third-highest rank in ISI, and following the deaths of Abu Umar and Masri, Badri became leader. His youth, previous position on the Shura Council, and claimed descent from the prophet made him an obvious choice. [10]

Upon becoming leader of ISI, Badri took the name Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He immediately set about cleansing ISI’s forces of people whose loyalty was in question and subsequently brought former Iraqi military and intelligence officers into leadership positions.[11] Around the same time, the failure to bring about a transformation of the Iraqi body politic following the Sunni Awakening, growing Sunni resentment with what were viewed as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s sectarian pro-Shi’a politics, and the impending withdrawal of US troops created the conditions in which ISI could regroup and regain its strength.[12] But the real opportunity for expansion came in 2011, when the Syrian uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime turned into a violent conflict.

---