ISIS butchers leave 'roads lined with decapitated police and soldiers': Battle for Baghdad looms as thousands answer Iraqi government's call to arms and jihadists bear down on capital
- U.S. today changed tone on intervention; President Obama said: 'I don't rule out anything... Iraq will need more help'
- Crucial vote to grant emergency powers was delayed because MPs did not turn up, leaving Iraqi government paralysed
- Disruption in Iraq could add 2p to the price of a litre of petrol within a fortnight as ISIS insurgents take key oil fields
- Kurdish forces are in full control of Iraq's oil city of Kirkuk after the federal army abandoned their posts
- Iran has sent special forces and a unit of elite troops to Iraq to assist the Iraqi government halt the advance
- Iraqi air force is bombing insurgent positions in and around Mosul - 1.3million citizens still remain in the city
- Middle East experts raised the prospect of Iraq being carved into three - Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite - by the conflict
The full horror of the jihadists’ savage victories in Iraq emerged yesterday as witnesses told of streets lined with decapitated soldiers and policemen.
Blood-soaked bodies and blazing vehicles were left in the wake of the Al Qaeda-inspired ISIS fanatics as they pushed the frontline towards Baghdad.
They boasted about their triumphs in a propaganda video depicting appalling scenes including a businessman being dragged from his car and executed at the roadside with a pistol to the back of his head. The extent of the carnage came as:
- Images from captured cities such as Mosul and Tikrit showed deserted streets, burnt out vehicles and discarded uniforms left by government troops fleeing the brutal fanatics;
- ISIS leaders urged their bloodthirsty followers to continue their march and warned that battle would rage in Baghdad and in the holy city of Karbala;
- Thousands of residents in the capital answered a call to arms to repel the invaders amid fears the government’s own troops were not up to the job;
- Aid groups warned of a new refugee crisis after half a million terrified Iraqis left their homes to escape the jihadists.
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The body an Iraqi policeman is shown in the northern Iraqi city of Samarra. Witnesses have reported horrible punishments being meted out to those who oppose the ISIS inusrgents
A member of the Iraqi security forces lies dead beside a vehicle in Tikrit, which was overrun by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on Wednesday
The battle to save Iraq's capital from the advancing Al Qaeda-inspired militants is underway today after the government begged Iraqis to sign up and fight
Thousands of men of all ages turned up today at an army recruiting center in the city to volunteer for military service in a bid to stop the Baghdad falling to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Volunteers who have joined the Iraqi army to fight against the predominantly Sunni militants, travel in an army truck, in Baghdad
An Iraqi soldier flashes a V for victory sign (left) while Iraqi men gather outside of the main army recruiting center to volunteer for military service (right)
A video uploaded on the Iraqi Ministry of Defence website shows Iraqi forces launching air strikes on the al-Ghazlani military camp in the northern city of Mosul said to be occupied by jihadist militants
The Iraqi air force are now bombing insurgent positions in and around Mosul - although 500,000 residents have fled, 1.3 million citizens remain in the city
In the swathe of captured territory across northern Iraq, ISIS declared hardline Sharia law, publishing rules ordering women not to go outside ‘unless strictly necessary’, banning alcohol and smoking, and forcing all residents to attend mosques five times a day. BBC correspondent Paul Wood said one woman from Mosul, Iraq’s second city, had spoken of seeing a ‘row of decapitated soldiers and policemen’.
The refugee woman told how the victims’ heads were placed in rows – a trademark, trophy-style execution favoured by ISIS militants.
The fanatics captured Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s birthplace, by overrunning an army base and rounding up hundreds of soldiers and police. Dozens of members of a police special forces battalion were paraded on the back of a truck in the city.
As the balaclava-clad militants took Mosul and Tikrit, thousands of Baghdad’s residents young and old queued at recruiting stations to form a ‘Dad’s army’ to defend the capital.
Trucks carrying volunteers in uniform rumbled towards the frontlines to defend the city, with many chanting slogans against the ISIS militants.
Meanwhile the Iraqi air force carried out at least four bombing raids on insurgent positions in and around Mosul. State television showed targets exploding in black clouds.
Britons working in Baghdad’s Green Zone where most of the foreign embassies are based were on high alert. The lightning advance of ISIS has caused alarm in London, Washington and across the Middle East.
Regional tensions: How religious and military divides shape the Middle East
Despite vastly outnumbering the jihadists, government troops have melted away in the face of the insurgents, allowing them to capture two helicopters, 15 tanks, weapons and several armoured cars that used belonging to the American military. They also seized £350million-worth of dinars by robbing a bank in Mosul.
According to bitter Iraqi footsoldiers, their commanders slipped away in the night rather than mount a defence of the city.
One said: ‘Our leaders betrayed us. The commanders left the military behind. When we woke up, all the leaders had left.’
Last night Barack Obama said America would help with ‘short-term immediate actions… militarily’ to push back the insurgents, but ruled out sending troops.
Foreign Secretary William Hague said Britain would not get involved militarily because Iraq was now a democracy.
Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki vowed: ‘We are not going to allow this to carry on, regardless of the price. We are getting ready. We are organising.’
As the situation spiralled out of control, even Iran was said to have deployed two battalions from its Revolutionary Guard to help the Iraqi government retake Tikrit.
The development was likely to enrage Washington, which has been steadfast in its determination for Baghdad not to cosy up to Tehran.
It also emerged that members of Saddam’s old guard were joining the insurrection. Fighters loyal to his disbanded Baath Party were said to be actively supporting the rebels. ISIS stands for Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham but has also been referenced as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Advances: In this unverified footage, broadcast today, armed men appearing to be militants gestures aggressively towards the camera
Threatening: Men pose with automatic rifles and a stationary machine gun, with the ISIS flag propped up behind them
An explosion as militants of ISIS allegedly seize an Iraqi army checkpoint in the northern Iraqi province of Salahuddin
ISIS take position on a Mosul street. Today Iraqi air force bombed insurgent positions in and around the northern city
ISIS fire heavy machine guns during fighting in the northern Iraqi city of Samarra - today the Islamic State has issued a triumphalist statement declaring that it would start implementing its strict version of Shariah law in Mosul and other regions it had overrun
Dozens of members of a police special forces battalion were paraded before a crowd in the Iraqi city of Tikrit on Thursday after they were captured by fighters who overran their base. Militants have set up military councils to run the towns they captured, residents said
FINALLY THE KURDS GET THEIR JERUSALEM: HOW ISIS INVASION IS REDRAWING THE MAP OF IRAQ
Iraqi Kurds seized control of the northern oil city of Kirkuk today as the central government's army abandoned its posts in a rapid collapse that has lost it control of the north.
Peshmerga fighters (pictured below), the security forces of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish north, swept into Kirkuk after the army abandoned its posts there, a peshmerga spokesman said.
'No Iraqi army remains in Kirkuk now.'
Kurds have long dreamed of taking Kirkuk, a city with huge oil reserves just outside their autonomous region, which they regard as their historical capital.
The swift move by their highly organized security forces demonstrates how this week's sudden advance by fighters of the Al Qaeda offshoot Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) has redrawn Iraq's map.
Kurds have been determined to return to Kirkuk after they were driven from the oil-rich city under Saddam Hussein's 'Arabisation' campaign - the settlement of tens of thousands of Arabs in Kirkuk during his three decades in power
The Iraqi government has control over the oil fields on the city's western fringe.
In May 2013, Kurdish fighters took up positions on the outskirts of Kirkuk after Iraqi security forces were redeployed to deal with Sunni militants elsewhere.
Today they made the final push after the army fled before an Islamist offensive nearby.
Its insurgency is the biggest threat to Iraq since US troops withdrew in 2011.
ISIS commanders issued chilling warnings to any police officers or soldiers to ‘repent or be killed’.
In a sinister video, the extremists urged followers to ‘march to Baghdad – we have a score to settle’. They also pledged to take the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf.
‘Continue your march as the battle is not yet raging,’ a voice said to be that of ISIS spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani says. ‘It will rage in Baghdad and Karbala. So be ready for it. Put on your belts and get ready.’
But taking Baghdad would be much tougher for ISIS than the towns where they have triumphed so far. The United Nations Security Council met behind closed doors last night to discuss the crisis.
Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, speaking in London, insisted the government had halted the rebel advance and even claimed insurgents were ‘on the run’.
But at Baiji, near Kirkuk, insurgents surrounded Iraq’s largest refinery. And the fighters have reached Samarra, 70 miles north of Baghdad.
About a quarter of Mosul’s two million residents have fled. The flood of terrified families escaping the fighting there was described as ‘one of the largest and swiftest mass movements of people in the world in recent memory’. Many have headed east into the autonomous region of Kurdistan.
Aid groups fear a new refugee crisis. Neighbouring countries already struggling to look after 2.8million refugees from the Syrian civil war now face the prospect of a new influx of displaced people desperately seeking a safe haven.
Meanwhile Iraqi Kurds seized control of the major northern oil city of Kirkuk today after the central government's army abandoned its posts.The Kurds - a semi-autonomous ethnic group based in the north - have their own 250,000-strong military, but have not used them to engage ISIS.
Footage emerged yesterday evening from TIkrit, which appears to show a long line of captured men and boys, being forcibly marched down a highway in the city.
The minute-long video, uploaded to YouTube, showed a snaking column of men stretching the entire visible length of the stretch of road. A voice captured by the recording describes a great Islamic 'family' and later an 'army', suggesting a possible intention to recruit the captives.
Most of the men and boys have both hands on their heads, while others - some wearing head coverings and some bare-faced - move up and down the column encouraging the march.
The startling developments raise the spectre of Iraq being carved up and divided into several states. Respected commentators have raised the prospect that, with Kurdish forces holding the north, the Sunni ISIS militants taking parts of the north and west, leaving the central and south-eastern to the Shiite population who currently run the government and military.
Yesterday the Iraqi Ambassador to Washington warned the ‘integrity of Iraq is in question’, while Dr Ayad Allawi, a former prime minister of Iraq, added that a break-up was ‘not impossible’.
The governor of Mosul, who escaped the city and is now in Erbil in the Kurdish north, said that Iraq must be divided as centralisation had 'failed'.
Speaking to the Telegraph, Atheel al-Nujaifi said prime minister Nouri al-Maliki 'didn't devolve authority to us before, but now we must do it. Now we are saying his centralisation policies have failed,' Mr Nujaifi said.
Repercussions from the conflict are also being felt in global oil markets, where prices shot to a three-month high. The RAC said disruption could add more than 2p to the price of a litre of petrol.
The price of Brent crude rose $2 to a three-month high of more than $112 on fears about supply from the second-biggest producer in the Opec oil cartel.
The RAC said: ‘The worsening situation in Iraq is causing a knee-jerk reaction in the global fuel market with wholesale prices going up one pence over Wednesday and Thursday.’
This was likely to push the pump price of both petrol and diesel up by 2p per litre in the short term, the RAC said, ‘and this could well go much further’.
Iraq has insisted sectarian violence will not spread to the south, from which the vast majority of oil output comes.
Less than 24 hours later the oil-rich city of Tikrit was captured by the militants, who then turned their attentions to the capital as it pushes ahead with its aim to overthrow the western-backed government as part of its goal to create an Islamic emirate spanning both sides of the Iraq-Syria border
Kurdistan's Peshmerga soldiers secure an area in Kirkuk city - the move was a victory for them as they have fought over the land for years
Kurdish security forces deploy outside of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Kurds have long dreamed of taking Kirkuk, a city with huge oil reserves just outside their autonomous region, which they regard as their historical capital
Militants on Al-Sharqat base north of Tikrit, Iraq. Yesterday ISIS took over Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit
Smoke billows from the site of a car bomb explosion in Khadiyah, northern Baghdad. So far government forces have stalled the militants' remarkably rapid advance near Samarra, a city just 110km (68 miles) north of Baghdad
Kurdish Iraqi Peshmerga forces deploy their troops and armoured vehicles on the outskirts of the multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk, only 1 kilometre away from areas controlled by Sunni Muslim Jihadists
Kurds have been determined to return to Kirkuk after they were driven from the oil-rich city under Saddam Hussein's programme of 'Arabisation'
After the capture of Mosul, the Islamic State issued a triumphalist statement declaring that it would implement its strict version of Shariah law in Mosul and other regions it had overrun.
Its laws state that women should stay in their homes for modesty reasons, command residents to attend prayers five times a day, and warned thieves that they would have their hands cut off.
It came as Kurdish forces took full control of Iraq's oil-rich city of Kirkuk after the federal army abandoned its bases there.
Peshmerga fighters, the security forces of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish north, swept into Kirkuk after the army abandoned its posts there, a peshmerga spokesman said.
'The whole of Kirkuk has fallen into the hands of peshmerga. No Iraqi army remains in Kirkuk now', said Jabbar Yawar.
Kurds have long dreamed of controlling Kirkuk, a city with huge oil reserves just outside their autonomous region, which they regard as their historical capital.
The swift move by their highly organised security forces demonstrates how this week's sudden advance by ISIS fighters has redrawn Iraq's map.
Insurgents surrounded Iraq's largest refinery in the northern town of Baiji this afternoon - they first moved in late on Tuesday, closing in on the refinery, but later withdrew to the surrounding villages after reaching a deal with local tribal chiefs.
A White House spokesman this evening said that they believed the Iraqi government were in control of the facility, but had no further details.
The man is led to his death. ISIS spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani today promised that the battle would 'rage' on Baghdad and Karbala, a city southwest of the capital. So far government forces have stalled the militants' remarkably rapid advance near Samarra, a city just 110km (68 miles) north of Baghdad
A man is executed in a propaganda video released this morning by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant as the Al Qaeda-inspired militants continue their march towards Baghdad
An abandoned Iraqi security forces vehicle is pictured on a road in Tikrit. There were no reliable estimates of casualties or the number of insurgents involved, though several hundred gunmen were in Tikrit and more were fighting on the outskirts, said Mizhar Fleih, the deputy head of the municipal council of nearby Samarra
Kurdish peshmerga forces take control of Toz Khormato after ISIS take control of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, and attacked the city of Kirkuk
The remains of a burnt out Iraqi army vehicles are seen at the Kukjali Iraqi Army checkpoint, some 10km of east of the northern city of Mosul
Burnt vehicles belonging to Iraqi security forces are pictured at a checkpoint in east Mosul, two days after radical Sunni Muslim insurgents seized control of the city
In the midst of the crisis, Iraq's parliament failed to declare a nationwide state of emergency after not enough MPs turned up for a vote.
Opposition politicians representing Sunni and Kurdish populations boycotted parliament because the oppose a motion to give extraordinary powers to Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Turkey is negotiating for the release of 80 nationals held by ISIS in Mosul and cannot confirm reports that some of them have been freed, government officials said today.
The pro-government Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak reported that the hostages, who include diplomatic staff, children and special forces soldiers, had been released to the Iraqi governor of Mosul and would be brought to Turkey tonight.
The capture of Mosul - along with the fall of Tikrit and the militants' earlier seizure of the city of Fallujah and parts of Ramadi, the capital of western Anbar province - has undone hard-fought gains against insurgents in the years following the invasion by U.S.-led forces.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the abductions and the seizure of Iraqi territory by the militants, urging 'the international community to unite in showing solidarity with Iraq as it confronts this serious security challenge.'
'Terrorism must not be allowed to succeed in undoing the path towards democracy in Iraq,' he added.
Mosul, the capital of Ninevah province, and the neighboring Sunni-dominated province of Anbar share a long and porous border with Syria, where the Islamic State is also active.
Without assigning direct blame, al-Maliki said a 'conspiracy' led to the massive security failure that allowed militants to capture Mosul, and said members of the security forces who fled rather than stand up to the militants should be punished.
'We are working to solve the situation,' al-Maliki said. 'We are regrouping the armed forces that are in charge of clearing Ninevah from those terrorists.'
Iranian airlines cancelled all flights between Tehran and Baghdad due to security concerns, and the Islamic Republic has intensified security measures along its borders, Iran's state news agency IRNA reported.
Shiite Iran, a major regional power, has strong ties with Iraq's government. Some 17,000 Iranian pilgrims are in Iraq at any given time, according to IRNA, which cited the director of Iran's Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization.
Tikrit residents said the militant group overran several police stations in the Sunni-dominated city.
Two Iraqi security officials confirmed that the city, 80 miles north of Baghdad and the capital of Salahuddin province, was under ISIS's control and that the provincial governor was missing.
The major oil refinery in Baiji, located between Mosul and Tikrit, remained in government control, the officials said. There were clashes and gunmen tried to take the town but were repelled in a rare success for Iraqi government forces protecting an important facility, the officials said.
The International Organisation for Migration estimated that 500,000 people fled the Mosul area, with some seeking safety in the Ninevah countryside or the nearby semi-autonomous Kurdish region.
Getting into the latter has become more difficult, however, with migrants without family members already in the enclave needing to secure permission from Kurdish authorities, according to the IOM.
Refugees: The girls above were pictured today in a refugee camp hastily established in Kurdistan. They are just two of the 500,000 fleeing the fighting
Smiling through the suffering: An Iraqi family (left) and two children (right) smile and play in the dusty camp - despite having been forced from their homes just days ago
Construction works to set up camps for the people fleeing Mosul after the city was seized by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
The International Organization for Migration estimated that 500,000 people fled the Mosul area, with some seeking safety in the Ninevah countryside or the nearby semiautonomous Kurdish region
Iraqis who fled the violence in Mosul stand in a queue at a checkpoint in Erbil, Kurdistan region
Iraqi refugees from Mosul arrive at Khazir refugee camp outside Irbil, 217 miles (350 kilometres) north of Baghdad
Thousands of people who fled Iraq's second city of Mosul after it was overrun by jihadists wait in the blistering heat, hoping to enter the safety of the nearby Kurdish region and furious at Baghdad's failure to help them
Iraqi children fleeing violence in the northern Nineveh province sleep in a tent at a temporary camp
An Iraqi Kurdish security guard waits to check the ID cards of Iraqi families fleeing violence in the northern Nineveh province as they gather at a Kurdish checkpoint in Aski Kalak, 40km west of Arbil
Mourners carry the coffin of a victim killed by a suicide bomber who blew himself up inside a tent filled with mourners in Baghdad, during a funeral in Najaf, south of Baghdad
The suicide bomber blew himself up inside a tent filled with mourners in a predominantly Sunni district of Baghdad, killing at least 16 people, police and medical sources have said
ABU DUA: IMPRISONED BY THE US, THE MAN WHO HATES THE WEST MORE THAN OSAMA BIN LADEN AND IS THE DRIVING FORCE BY ISIS
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, (seen here when he was a prisoner and more recently) is the shadowy head of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the shadowy leader of thousands of Islamist fighters in Syria and Iraq, many of them Westerners, appears to be surpassing Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri as the world’s most influential jihadist.
'For the last 10 years or more, [Zawahri] has been holed up in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area and hasn’t really done very much more than issue a few statements and videos,' said Richard Barrett, a former counterterrorism chief at MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence service.
'Whereas Baghdadi has done an amazing amount – he has captured cities, he has mobilized huge amounts of people, he is killing ruthlessly throughout Iraq and Syria.
'If you were a guy who wanted action, you would go with Baghdadi,' said Barrett. noting the ISIS leader’s challenge to Zawahri was 'a really interesting development.'
'Where that goes will determine a lot about how terrorism is [carried out],' Barrett said.
The ISIS leader, who was born in 1971 in Baghdad, is touted as a battlefield commander and tactician, a crucial distinction compared with Zawahri.
Baghdadi, who has a degrees in Islamic studies, apparently joined the insurgency that erupted in Iraq soon after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
He was taken as a prisoner of the Americans in Camp Bucca between 2005 and 2007 - it was here that one of the only two photos know to be in existence was taken of him.
He is known as 'The Ghost' to members of the pro-Assad Lebanese Shi-ite militia Hizballah.
Baghdadi taken as a prisoner of the Americans in Camp Bucca between 2005 and 2007 (file photo)
'Only a few people know the face of Baghdadi,' Sheik Ahmad, the Hizballah official in charge of investigating ISIS in Syria, told TIME last year.
The secretive Baghdadi talks with a scarf covering his face even when dealing with close allies, according to militants who worked with him in Iraq.
He addresses his ISIS followers through audio recordings posted to the internet, rather than in public places.
In October 2005, American forces said they believed they had killed him in a strike on the Iraq- Syria border.
But that appears to have been incorrect, as he took the reins of what was then known as the Islamic State of Iraq in May 2010 after two of its chiefs were killed in a U.S.-Iraqi raid. Since then, details about him have slowly trickled out.
In October 2011, the U.S. Treasury designated him as a 'terrorist' in a notice that said he was born in the Iraqi city of Samarra in 1971.
And earlier this year, Iraq released a picture they said was of Baghdadi, the first from an official source, depicting a balding, bearded man in a suit and tie.
Lt. Gen. Abdel-Amir al-Zaidi, who heads a northern security command centre, says his forces believe Baghdadi is hiding in Iraq’s Diyala province, but other officials contest this.
He is a renegade within al-Qaeda and it was his maverick streak that eventually led its central command to sever ties, deepening a rivalry between his organization and the global terror network
Zawahri has urged ISIS to focus on Iraq and leave Syria to Nusra, but Baghdadi and his fighters have openly defied the Al-Qaeda chief and, indeed, have fought not only Assad, but also Nusra and other rebel groups.
He is 'more violent, more virulent, more anti-American [than Osama Bin Laden]' a senior U.S. intelligence official told the Washington Post.
Marauding ISIS militia beheading their way to Baghdad: How jihadist group so extreme even al-Qaeda has distanced itself threatens to take Iraq three years after America left
The Islamist militia is so ruthless and extreme that even al-Qaeda has cut ties and distances itself from them.
The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as Isis), used to be part of the international terror network, but was cast out in February this year in light of its violent behaviour towards rival jihadist groups.
It is famed - and feared - for spreading hardline Islamic law to the areas it subdues. Transgressors are sentenced to death and swiftly executed in public, their bodies left to decay in the streets.
This treatment has even been doled out against other jihadist leaders, who have been assassinated in a brutal struggle over strategy in the Middle East. Young jihadists are increasingly drawn to Isis over less extreme groups - particularly in the light of their rapid military progress through Iraq.
In the past days the group has overrun the northern city of Mosul, and today also took Tikrit, the hometown of executed Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein.
The Islamist militia is so ruthless and extreme that even al-Qaeda has cut ties and distances itself from them
In February, the leader of al-Qaeda issued a statement dissociating itself from Isis, which it accused of 'forbidden bloodshed' directed at fellow fighters.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's chief, cut ties after Isis attempted to bolster its strength by merging with other rebels in Syria.
He said: 'We weren't informed about its creation, nor counselled. Nor are we satisfied with it: rather we ordered it to stop... Nor is al–Qaeda responsible for its actions and behaviour.'
The organisation is led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has a U.S. bounty of $10million on his head, second only to al-Zawahiri.
The ISIS leader, who was born in 1971 in Baghdad, is touted as a battlefield commander and tactician.
Baghdadi, who has a degree in Islamic studies, apparently joined the insurgency that erupted in Iraq soon after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
He was taken as a prisoner of the Americans in Camp Bucca between 2005 and 2007 - it was here that one of the only two photos know to be in existence was taken of him.
He is known as 'The Ghost' to members of the pro-Assad Lebanese Shi-ite militia Hizballah.
The secretive Baghdadi talks with a scarf covering his face even when dealing with close allies, according to militants who worked with him in Iraq.
He addresses his ISIS followers through audio recordings posted to the internet, rather than in public places.
Military sources have reported his death on numerous occasions in the past years, but the fighter always seems to reappear. This has led to speculation that al-Baghdadi is in fact a name used jointly by several commanders.
Some estimates claim Isis group has in excess of 10,000 fighting men in its ranks. Many of its fighters are thought to be radicalised Western Muslims who have poured in from Europe and North American to join the fighting in Syria and elsewhere.
The group, which controls large areas of land in Syria, is thought to be pouring resources and money from those areas into its burgeoning Iraqi campaign, which has seen it tear through the northern regions on the country.
Tensions: The Isis fighters are from the Sunni branch of Islam - as was Saddam Hussein - in contrast to the current Shia government
Its military progress, largely unhindered by Iraq's own security forces, have given it control over several highly valuable oil fields, which leaders will hope to exploit to strengthen their hand.
The situation has alarmed officials in Turkey, who called an emergency meeting of NATO ambassadors after 80 of its citizens were taken hostage by Isis.
'Turkey briefed the other allies on the situation in (the Iraqi city of) Mosul and the hostage-taking of Turkish citizens, including the consul general,' a NATO official said.
He said the meeting was held for informational purposes and not under Article 4 of NATO's founding treaty, which permits a member of the 28-nation alliance to ask for consultations with other allies when it feels its security is threatened.
Turks seized included 48 from the consulate in Mosul - including the consul-general and three children. Separately, 28 truck drivers who were delivering diesel to a power plant were captured on Monday.
Meanwhile, Baghdad residents were stockpiling food, fuel and weaponry in anticipation of an attack on the capital in the coming days.
Prime Minister Maliki has previously encouraged ordinary Iraqis to take up arms against the advancing soldiers of Isis, especially in light of claims that members of the police and military are intentionally defecting.
Senior sources in the Iraqi government have said that they have a plan to take back Mosul, but were unclear on the details.
Isis is pushing to expand its territory, which currently straddles the border between Syria and Iraq, and includes land extremely close to the Turkish border.
The group's centre of power is Raqqa, a city in northern Syria, which is being run under the regime's oppressive and violent code.
Raqqa was heavily contested throughout the Syrian conflict, and was held by several rebel groups until Isis threw out all other contenders in 2013.
Recently Isis leaders imposed punitive rules on the city's Christian population, demanding that they pay a levy of gold for 'protection' else face being killed on the streets for their faith.
Horrifying images have also emerged from the cities of crucifixions being used to punish men who attacked Isis fighters.
Seven men were sentenced to death after a grenade was thrown at a soldier near a roundabout in Raqqa. The men, who were riding motorbikes, were then hunted down by Isis forces, according to a statement from the group. Two of the men were sentenced to die by crucifixion.
One of the two was wrapped in a banner, which said: 'This man fought against Muslims and threw a grenade in this place.'
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