The Islamic State group said Thursday it had carried out an attack on a bus, killing 39 soldiers near Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria.

The Islamic State's propaganda arm Amaq said its fighters had "ambushed a bus transporting apostate Nusayri army elements," using a derogatory term for the Alawite sect to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs.

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"It was one of the deadliest attacks since the fall of the IS caliphate" last year, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human rights Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Two other buses that were part of the same convoy managed to escape.

In the wake of the civil war in Syria, ISIS declared a caliphate in 2014 and began conquering large swathes of land in Syria and Iraq. Multiple offenses by regional forces, assisted by world powers, led to its territorial defeat.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the group, died during a US attack in Idlib, Syria in October 2019. IS was overrun in Syria the following March, yet sleeper cells remain in Syria and Iraq, as well as other countries.

This article was first published by i24NEWS.

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Somalia's Province posted pictures on Telegram of around a dozen fighters standing among trees, with a caption saying they were pledging allegiance to Quraishi.

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Quraishi was named as the organization's leader on Thursday in an audio message that also confirmed Baghdadi's death and vowed revenge against the United States.

An Islamic State spokesman warned the US to "beware vengeance [against] their nation and their brethren of infidels and apostates."

US special forces killed Baghdadi in a raid in northwest Syria on October 26.

Egypt's Islamic State affiliate, Sinai Province, also swore allegiance to Quraishi on Sunday.

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The declassified, grainy, black-and-white aerial videos from Saturday's raid showed US special operations forces closing in on the compound and US aircraft firing on terrorists nearby.

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The most dramatic video showed a massive, black plume of smoke rising from the ground after US military bombs leveled Baghdadi's compound.

"It looks pretty much like a parking lot, with large potholes," said Marine General Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of US Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East.

McKenzie, briefing Pentagon reporters, said the idea of destroying the compound was at least in part "to ensure that it would not be a shrine or otherwise memorable in any way.

"It's just another piece of ground," he said.

Baghdadi, who rose from obscurity to declare himself "caliph" of all Muslims as the leader of Islamic State, died by detonating a suicide vest as he fled into a dead-end tunnel as elite US special forces closed in.

McKenzie said he brought two young children into the tunnel with him – not three, as had been the US government estimate. Both children were believed to be under the age of 12 and both were killed, he said.

He portrayed Baghdadi as isolated at his Syrian compound, just four miles from the Turkish border, saying fighters from other militant groups nearby probably did not even know he was there. McKenzie suggested it was unlikely that Baghdadi used the Internet or had digital connections to the outside world.

"I think you'd find [he was using] probably a messenger system that allows you to put something on a floppy or on a bit of electronics and have someone physically move it somewhere," he said.

McKenzie said Islamic State would likely try to stage some kind of retaliatory attack.

"We suspect they will try some form of retribution attack. And we are postured and prepared for that," he said.

Whimpering and crying?

McKenzie did not confirm or deny Trump's dramatic account of Baghdadi's final moments, which the president delivered during a televised address to the nation on Sunday. Trump said Baghdadi "died a coward – crying, whimpering, screaming."

Asked about Trump's account, McKenzie said: "About Baghdadi's last moments, I can tell you this: He crawled into a hole with two small children and blew himself up as his people stayed on the ground."

"So you can deduce what kind of person he is based on that activity... I'm not able to confirm anything else about his last seconds. I just can't confirm that one way or another," he added.

On Monday, Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also declined to confirm Trump's account, saying he presumed Trump got that information from his direct conversations with members of the elite unit that conducted the operation. Milley had not yet spoken with them, he said.

McKenzie suggested the US military had secured a large amount of intelligence about Islamic State's activities during the raid.

"While the assault force was securing the remains, they also secured whatever documentation and electronics we could find, which was substantial," McKenzie said, declining to provide further details.

McKenzie said Turkey's incursion into Syria this month, and the US pullback from the border, was not a factor in deciding the timing of the raid. Instead, McKenzie pointed to a host of other factors, including the amount of moonlight.

"We struck because the time is about right to do it then, given the totality of the intelligence and the other factors that would affect the raid force going into and coming out," McKenzie said.

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"Just confirmed that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's number one replacement has been terminated by American troops," Trump wrote on Twitter. "Most likely would have taken the top spot."

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Trump did not specify who he was referring to, but the United States on Monday confirmed the killing of Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajir, Islamic State spokesman and a high-ranking figure within the jihadi group.

Trump on Sunday announced the killing of Baghdadi by US special operations forces in northwestern Syria.

A senior State Department official said on Monday that al-Muhajir was killed in a separate operation. The Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said on Sunday that al-Muhajir was killed in a joint raid between Kurdish-led and US forces in northern Syria.

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On Sunday, the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said al-Muhajir was killed in a joint raid between Kurdish-led and US forces in northern Syria.

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Syrian Democratic Forces General Commander Mazloum Abdi said it was "a continuation of the previous operation" in which Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed on Saturday. He described the jihadist spokesman as Baghdadi's right-hand man.

Al-Muhajir was killed in the Syrian town of Jarablus in Aleppo province, said the US official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity.

The operation which led to "the demise of [Baghdadi's] No. 2, or one of his No. 2s," was also carried out by US forces, the official said, adding that the SDF had a big role in it.

Baghdadi, an Iraqi jihadist who rose from obscurity to declare himself "caliph" of all Muslims as the leader of Islamic State, died by detonating a suicide vest after fleeing into a dead-end tunnel as elite US special operations forces closed in on him, according to the US government.

Islamic State has no declared successor as leader. But the group has in the past proved resilient, continuing to mount or inspire attacks in the region and beyond despite losing most of its territory in recent years.

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The official said US President Donald Trump, by announcing a withdrawal of US troops from northern Syria on Oct. 6, did not suggest that Washington would drop the fight against the jihadist group, whose leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a US raid in Syria on Saturday.

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"There was never an idea that we would abandon the mission of going after ISIS ... This is a major effort that is continuing," the official said to reporters on condition of anonymity.

Trump has been softening his pullout plans for Syria after a backlash from Congress, including fellow Republicans, who say he enabled a long-threatened Turkish incursion on Oct. 9 against Kurdish forces in Syria who had been America's top allies in the battle against Islamic State since 2014.

Trump ordered the withdrawal because he was facing a "chaotic situation" the official said. "Then as the smoke cleared, we adjusted that a little bit to make clear that we were going to keep some forces on, to continue the mission."

Turkey launched its cross-border offensive to drive the Kurdish YPG militia it sees as hostile out of northeastern Syria. Ankara halted the operation after the Kurdish forces pulled out of a designated area under a US-brokered truce.

About 30-40 ministers and organizations that are part of the coalition will convene on the initiative of France and backed by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the official said.

"This is something President Trump has been working on both to get troops on the ground, airplanes in the air and money flowing to stabilization in that area from partners and allies who are in the coalition," he said.

Amid fears that Islamic State could stage a comeback, Trump said last week that a small number of troops would remain in the area of Syria "where they have the oil," a reference to oil fields in the Kurdish-controlled region.

"The President is focused on oil because it is very important to keep that out of the hands of ISIS," the US official said on Monday. "We also don't think it is a good thing for Iranians or the regime to have them."

The official acknowledged, however, that some of the oil ends up in the hands of the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who is backed by Russia and Iran in the more than eight-year-long Syrian war.

The death of Baghdadi fulfilled a top national security goal of the Trump administration and was welcomed by world leaders who cautioned that the fight against Islamic State was not over.

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Where once they confronted armies, the extremist Islamist group's adherents have in recent years staged hit-and-run and suicide attacks. In some cases, the group has claimed responsibility for atrocities such as bombings in Sri Lanka in April that killed more than 250 people.

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Islamic State's involvement is not always proven, but even if the link is ideological rather than operational, it is still seen as a security threat in many countries in the Middle East and around the world.

Defeated by US-backed forces in Iraq, Islamic State has reverted to the guerrilla tactics it was once known for. Iraqi Security Forces routinely carry out operations against remnants of the Jihadist group, more than two years after its defeat.

Sleeper cells have regrouped in provinces including Diyala, Salahuddin, Anbar, Kirkuk, and Nineveh, where they have carried out frequent attacks, including kidnappings and bombings aimed at undermining the Baghdad government.

Although cells operate mostly in rural areas, burning crops and extorting local farmers, in February, two people were killed and 24 wounded when a car bomb went off in Mosul, once the group's capital in Iraq.

The Pentagon said in January that ISIS was regenerating faster in Iraq than in Syria. Analysts estimated earlier this year that about 2,000 active combatants now operate in Iraq.

Having suffered serious military setbacks in Syria, ISIS slipped into the shadows, staging suicide bombings and ambushes. It has carried out bomb attacks in towns and cities in northern Syria in the past year, including targeting US forces.

Syrian Kurdish forces, who crushed the jihadists across the north and east with US help, have said they believe sleeper cells mushroomed in eastern Syria. They have warned of the risk posed by holding thousands of fighters in prisons, including foreigners from around the world.

That warning came into sharp focus this month when US President Donald Trump announced he was pulling American troops from northeastern Syria, opening the way for Turkey to launch an offensive targeting Kurdish fighters near its border.

Islamic State fighters still hold some ground in Syria's remote central desert in territory otherwise held by the Damascus government.

Egypt has seen no large attacks over the past year, but smaller incidents persist and the military is mounting a campaign against Islamist insurgents, mainly on the Sinai Peninsula.

The military says several hundred combatants have been killed since it launched a major campaign in February 2018 to defeat fighters linked to Islamic State in Sinai.

ISIS terrorists have also carried out deadly bombings and shootings in Saudi Arabia, targeting security forces and minority Shiite Muslims, after the authorities crushed an al-Qaida insurgency more than a decade ago.

Baghdadi called for attacks against Saudi Arabia when the kingdom joined the US-led coalition in mounting airstrikes against his group. In his speeches, he also used derogatory terms when he referred to the rulers in Riyadh.

Kamran Bokhari, a director at Washington-based think-tank the Center for Global Policy, said earlier this year that Islamic State exists in the kingdom but Saudi security forces and intelligence service are "pretty much on top of things."

Islamic State announced a Yemeni affiliate in late 2014 as the country descended into civil war between the Saudi-backed government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and the Iran-aligned Houthi movement.

However, the group has since faced tough resistance from al-Qaida's local branch, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and both groups fought each other, especially in the southern province of al-Bayda.

Al-Qaida and Islamic State are also fighting Shiite Houthis, which they see as heretics.

Islamic State has claimed several assassinations and bombings in south Yemen but has never held territory. Experts believe al-Qaida, with older and deeper tribal connections, poses a bigger threat in the war-torn country.

Nigerian group Boko Haram has carried out attacks in northeastern Nigeria since 2009 in pursuit of an Islamic caliphate. It has killed more than 30,000 people and forced 2 million to flee their homes. The group split in 2016 and one faction pledged allegiance to IS.

Islamic State's West Africa Province (ISWAP) has focused on attacking military bases in raids over the last year. It has become the dominant terrorist group in the region.

The extent of support provided by Islamic State to ISWAP is unclear and many security experts say the relationship is mainly in name rather than direct funding and logistical support.

In Afghanistan, Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), which took its name from a historical region that covered much of modern-day Afghanistan and parts of Central Asia, appeared in late 2014 in the eastern province of Nangarhar, where it retains a stronghold. It announced its formation in January 2015.

The group's leadership has pledged allegiance to Baghdadi but it is not clear that ISIS-K has direct operational links with the main movement.

It has claimed attacks on civilian targets in cities including Kabul and fought the Afghan Taliban for control of a number of rural districts. US commanders say its forces number fewer than 2,000.

The movement is little understood and many Afghan officials in Kabul doubt the veracity of some of its claims of responsibility.

Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim-majority country and most people practice a moderate form of Islam. But there has been a resurgence in militancy and authorities have said they believe thousands of Indonesians draw inspiration from Islamic State, while about 500 Indonesians are thought to have gone to Syria to join the group.

The Philippines fears that extremists fleeing Iraq and Syria could find a safe haven in the jungles and remote villages of Muslim areas of Mindanao, where there is a long history of lawlessness, clan rivalry, and separatist and Islamist rebellion.

Several splinters of the myriad armed groups in the southern Philippines have pledged allegiance to Islamic State, although none are known to have been endorsed as its Southeast Asian affiliate.

Islamic State has often claimed responsibility for bombings and rebel clashes with government troops in Mindanao, but their veracity is often disputed.

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Baghdadi would sometimes hold strategy talks with his commanders in moving minibuses packed with vegetables in order to avoid detection, Ismael al-Ethawi told officials after he was arrested by Turkish authorities and handed to the Iraqis.

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"Ethawi gave valuable information which helped the Iraqi multi-security agencies team complete the missing pieces of the puzzle of Baghdadi's movements and places he used to hide," one of the Iraqi security officials said.

"Ethawi gave us details on five men, including himself, whom were meeting Baghdadi inside Syria and the different locations they used," the official told Reuters.

US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that Baghdadi died "whimpering and crying" in a raid by US special forces in the Idlib region of northwest Syria.

In a televised address from the White House, Trump said the Islamic State leader died alongside three of his children when he detonated an explosives-laden vest after fleeing into a dead-end tunnel during the attack.

The path to Baghdadi's demise was full of frustrations for Western and Arab intelligence agencies, which pored over clues to the whereabouts of a man who imposed a reign of terror across a large swathe of Syria and Iraq, ordering his men to carry out mass executions and beheadings.

He is also responsible for gruesome attacks across five continents in the name of his ultra-fanatic version of Islam.

Turning terrorists such as Ethawi was critical to the agents trying to track Baghdadi.

Ethawi, who holds a PHD in Islamic Sciences, was considered by Iraqi intelligence officials to be one of the leader's top five aides. He joined al-Qaida in 2006 and was arrested by US forces in 2008 and jailed for four years, according to the Iraqi security officials.

Baghdadi later tasked Ethawi with key roles such as delivering religious instructions and the selection of Islamic State commanders. After the group largely collapsed in 2017, Ethawi fled to Syria with his Syrian wife.

Another turning point came earlier this year during a joint operation in which US, Turkish and Iraqi intelligence agents captured senior Islamic State leaders, including four Iraqis and one Syrian, the Iraqi security officials said.

"They gave us all the locations where they were meeting with Baghdadi inside Syria and we decided to coordinate with the CIA to deploy more sources inside these areas," said one of the Iraqi officials, who has close ties to multiple security agencies.

"In mid-2019 we managed to locate Idlib as the place where Baghdadi was moving from village to village with his family and three close aides," the official said.

Informants in Syria then spotted an Iraqi man wearing a checkered headdress in an Idlib marketplace and recognized him from a photograph, the official said. It was Ethawi, and they followed him to the home where Baghdadi was staying.

"We passed the details to the CIA and they used a satellite and drones to watch the location for the past five months," the official said.

Two days ago, Baghdadi left the location with his family for the first time, traveling by minibus to a nearby village.

"There it was his last moment to live," the official said.

Baghdadi was also on the run from local enemies in Syria.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the group formerly known as the Nusra Front and which dominates Idlib, had been mounting its own search for Baghdadi after receiving information he was in the area, according to a commander in an Idlib jihadist group.

The Nusra Front and Islamic State were rivals who fought bloody battles against each other in the Syrian war.

The Nusra Front, founded by Abu Mohamad al-Golani, was al-Qaida's official affiliate in Syria until it broke away from the global jihadist network in 2016.

According to the Idlib commander, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham recently captured another aide to Baghdadi, Abu Suleiman al-Khalidi, one of three men seen sitting alongside Baghdadi in his last video message.

The capture of Khalidi was "the key" in the search for Baghdadi, the commander said.

His comments raised the possibility that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which locals say is believed to have contacts with Turkish forces in northwest Syria, may have passed on what it learned to other intelligence agencies.

Baghdadi may have concluded that hiding in Idlib was his best hope after Islamic State was all but wiped out in Iraq and Syria. He could have blended in, while lax security and checkpoints operated by armed groups that rarely search vehicles increased his chances of survival, the commander said.

He said Baghdadi was believed to have been in Idlib for about six months, and that his main reason for being there was to try to hide. But he said Baghdadi was still seen as a major threat because his presence would have attracted supporters in an area where Islamic State has sleeper cells.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham fighters raided the town of Sarmin about two months ago after receiving information about Baghdadi being there, but he was not found, according to the commander.

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Baghdadi killed himself during the raid by detonating a suicide vest, Trump said in a televised address from the White House.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement saying, "I would like to congratulate President Trump on the impressive achievement that led to the assassination of the head of Islamic State al-Baghdadi. This reflects our shared determination, of the United States of America and of all free countries, to fight terror organizations and terrorist states. This achievement is an important milestone, but the campaign is still ahead of us."

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US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, criticized Trump not notifying US Congressional leadership prior to the raid. She also said in a statement: "The death of al-Baghdadi is significant, but the death of this ISIS leader does not mean the death of ISIS. Scores of ISIS fighters remain under uncertain conditions in Syrian prisons, and countless others in the region and around the world remain intent on spreading their influence and committing acts of terror."

Joe Biden, a contender for the Democratic nomination to face Trump in the 2020 presidential election said, "We cannot afford to get distracted or take our eye off the target. ISIS remains a threat to the American people and our allies, and we must keep up the pressure to prevent ISIS from ever regrouping or again threatening the United States."

US Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) tweeted, "Al Baghdadi spread 'fire and brimstone' on earth' now he feels it for himself in hell. To all who arranged his change of venue – the intel officers, the President, the warriors – thank you."

British Premier Boris Johnson tweeted, "The death of Baghdadi is an important moment in our fight against terror but the battle against the evil of Daesh [ISIS] is not yet over. We will work with our coalition partners to bring an end to the murderous, barbaric activities of Daesh once and for all."

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab warned that the world "must not allow Daesh to glorify someone who actioned such inhumane and abhorrent criminal acts. The UK will continue to support efforts to defeat Daesh."

French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted, "Al-Baghdadi's death is a hard blow against Islamic State, but it is just a stage. With our partners in the international coalition, the fight continues to finally defeat this terrorist organization. It is our priority in the Middle East."

Bahrain Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa said that the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was a fatal blow to the group.

The Iraqi government issued a statement saying, "Following extensive work by a dedicated team for over a year, Iraq's National Intelligence Service was able to accurately pinpoint the hideout of the terrorist Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi in the Syrian province of Idlib.

"Subsequently, US forces in coordination with Iraq's National Intelligence Service carried out an operation which led to the elimination of the terrorist Al-Baghdadi.

"Iraq's Armed Forces and intelligence services will continue to work with Iraq's partners in the coalition to relentlessly pursue Daesh [Islamic State] terrorists and to defeat their ideology."

Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei tweeted, "The killing of Baghdadi will not end Daesh [Islamic State] and its ideology, which was created and flourished with the help of regional petrodollars."

Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov was quoted by local media as saying, "The Russian Defense Ministry does not have reliable information on the operation by US ... on yet another 'elimination' of former ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi."

Konstantin Kosachyov, chairman of the upper house of parliament's foreign affairs committee, told the Interfax news agency: "Last respects have been paid to al-Baghdadi at least five times in the past. [Also] countering terrorism is a much more difficult task than the physical destruction of its leaders, even the most irreconcilable."

Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan said, "The killing of Daesh's ringleader marks a turning point in our joint fight against terrorism. Turkey will continue to support anti-terror efforts, as it has done in the past."

A senior aide to Erdoğan, Fahrettin Altun, added that Ankara "was proud to help the United States, our NATO ally, bring a notorious terrorist to justice."

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With a $25 million US bounty on his head, al-Baghdadi steered his chillingly violent and surprisingly disciplined followers into new territory by capitalizing on feelings of Sunni supremacy and disenfranchisement at a time of tumult that followed the Arab Spring.

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One of the few senior ISIS commanders still at large after two years of steady battlefield losses, al-Baghdadi died Saturday when he detonated his suicide vest in a tunnel while being pursued by US forces north of Idlib, Syria, killing himself and three of his children, US President Donald Trump announced Sunday. He was believed to be 48.

"He didn't die a hero, he died a coward, crying, whimpering, and screaming," Trump said at the White House, adding that the US had al-Baghdadi under surveillance for weeks.

Fighters under his command were some of the first jihadis to grow up with the internet, and they deftly exploited social media to tout their military successes, document their mass slaughter, beheadings and stonings, and promote the Islamic State to a global audience.

The announcement of his death came nearly two years after Iraq announced the defeat of ISIS and five years after the group humiliated its armed forces and seized nearly a third of the country.

In April, US-backed Kurdish-led forces in Syria declared the group's territorial defeat after liberating the village of Baghouz in eastern Syria, its last bastion. The Islamic State saw its territory shrink from an area the size of Britain to a speck in the Euphrates river valley.

Though at minimum a symbolic victory for Western counterterrorism efforts, it is unclear what impact his death will have on possible future attacks. He was largely regarded as a figurehead of the global terror network, and was described as "irrelevant for a long time" by a coalition spokesman in 2017.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the death of al-Baghdadi is "only a step," adding that the fight continues "so that the terrorist organization is definitely defeated."

Also unclear is who will replace him as leader. The group has lost many of its senior commanders in US-led airstrikes, including Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali, described as the group's No. 2 who was killed in Iraq by an August 2015 US airstrike, and Abu Ali al-Anbari, the extremist group's leading finance official, who was killed in 2016. Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, the ISIS spokesman and one of the group's best-known commanders, also was reported to have been killed in 2016 by a Russian airstrike.

Al-Baghdadi was born as Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai sometime in 1971 in Samarra, Iraq, about 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad, according to a UN sanctions list. His hometown later would be the site of a 2006 bombing by Sunni fighters on a revered Shiite shrine – an attack that sparked a wave of sectarian violence that pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war.

Details of his early life are murky. A brief biography posted to online jihadi forums in 2014 traced his lineage to the Prophet Muhammad's Quraysh tribe. Its claims, which cannot be independently confirmed, describe al-Baghdadi as coming from a religious family and earning a doctorate from Saddam University for Islamic Studies, the Iraqi capital's main center at the time for Sunni clerical scholarship. It says he promoted the Salafi jihadi movement, which advocates "holy war" to bring about a strict, uncompromising version of Islamic law, or Shariah.

According to ISIS-affiliated websites, al-Baghdadi was detained by US forces in Iraq and sent to Bucca prison in 2004 for his anti-US activities, although he was considered a civilian detainee and his jailers were unaware of his jihadi role. He was released 10 months later and joined the al-Qaida branch in Iraq of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Al-Zarqawi was killed by a US airstrike north of Baghdad in 2006 and al-Baghdadi became a trusted aide of its two most senior figures, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri. Al-Baghdadi assumed control of the group, known at the time as the Islamic State of Iraq.

The group he inherited, al-Qaida's official franchise in Iraq, already had been weakened by years of US and Iraqi raids and the mobilization of large numbers of Sunni fighters opposed to its extremist ideology. But al-Baghdadi was playing a long game.

Deploying suicide attackers, roadside explosives, car bombs and Kalashnikov-toting gunmen, he increased the tempo of assaults against Iraqi forces and Shiite civilians as the US military drew down its troops ahead of their December 2011 withdrawal. Prison breaks, including a military-style assault on two Baghdad-area jails in July 2013 that freed more than 500 inmates, bolstered his group's ranks.

The chaos of the uprising against President Bashar Assad in Syria provided an opportunity to expand his influence. Al-Baghdadi sent comrades to create a like-minded Sunni extremist group known as the Nusra Front, which more moderate Sunni rebels initially welcomed.

Over time, more of his fighters and possibly al-Baghdadi himself relocated to Syria, pursuing their plans to restore a medieval Islamic state, or caliphate, spanning both Iraq and greater Syria, also known as the Levant. In April 2013, al-Baghdadi announced what amounted to a hostile takeover of the Nusra Front, saying he was merging it into a new group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The move caught both the Nusra Front and al-Qaida's central command off guard.

Nusra Front leader Abu Mohammad al-Golani refused to accept the takeover. Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's top leader, tried to end the squabbling and ordered al-Baghdadi's group to be abolished.

Al-Baghdadi, however, would not compromise, and al-Qaida eventually had enough. In February, it formally distanced itself from al-Baghdadi, saying it had no connection with his group and "is not responsible for its actions."

But al-Baghdadi's organization was well on its way to achieving the proto-state it coveted, taking control of key cities such as Raqqa, Syria, and Fallujah in Iraq.

Then came the offensive that would draw the US back into Iraq. In June 2014, al-Baghdadi's fighters and allied Sunni fighters seized Iraq's second-largest city of Mosul and other Sunni-dominated communities in the north and west of the country. Government troops in many areas put up little resistance, abandoning their posts and leaving behind valuable American-made material. Al-Baghdadi's fighters posted propaganda videos of its forces gunning down captured Shiite troops en masse.

By month's end, the group announced its own state governed by Islamic law. Al-Baghdadi became the declared "caliph" of the newly renamed Islamic State group, and Muslims worldwide were urged to pledge allegiance to him.

On June 29, 2014, the group released a video showing a man purporting to be al-Baghdadi giving a sermon at a Mosul mosque.

"It is a burden to accept this responsibility to be in charge of you," he said. "I am not better than you or more virtuous than you. If you see me on the right path, help me. If you see me on the wrong path, advise me and halt me. And obey me as far as I obey God."

Then-US President Barack Obama launched airstrikes against ISIS beginning Aug. 8. He acted after thousands of Iraqi Yazidis, followers of an ancient religion with ties to Zoroastrianism, were targeted by al-Baghdadi's fighters, and to safeguard US interests, including a consulate in the Iraqi Kurdish regional capital of Erbil.

Islamic State terrorists responded by beheading Western captives, beginning with freelance American journalist James Foley, and posting their deeds in gruesome online videos.

The US and Arab allies eventually expanded the military campaign to target ISIS fighters with airstrikes in Syria, helping US-backed Kurdish fighters battle the group.

Under pressure in both countries, the group turned outward, claiming responsibility for the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris in which 130 people died, and the March 22 attacks in Brussels that left 32 people dead.

Iraqi officials said al-Baghdadi was wounded in an airstrike on Nov. 8, 2014, in the town of Qa'im, near the Syrian border in Iraq's Anbar province. Days later, an online audio message purportedly from al-Baghdadi urged his followers to "explode the volcanoes of jihad everywhere."

Little is known about al-Baghdadi's family. An ex-wife, Saja al-Dulaimi, and her daughter from al-Baghdadi, were detained in Lebanon in 2014. She was released a year later as part of a swap with al-Qaida in exchange for kidnapped Lebanese soldiers and police. In July 2018, ISIS said al-Baghdadi's son, Huthaifa al-Badri, was killed fighting government forces in central Syria.

On April 30, he appeared in a video for the first time in five years, acknowledging defeat in the group's last stronghold in Syria but vowing a "long battle" ahead. He appeared with a bushy gray and red beard, wearing a black robe with a beige vest and seated on the floor with what appears to be an AK-74 rifle propped up next to him.

The man said to be Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the video also claimed the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka that killed over 250 people were "part of the revenge" against the West.

"Our battle today is a war of attrition to harm the enemy, and they should know that jihad will continue until doomsday," al-Baghdadi said.

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