Two weeks of air and missile strikes in Syria have given Western intelligence and military officials a deeper appreciation of the transformation that Russia’s military has undergone under President Vladimir V. Putin, showcasing its ability to conduct operations beyond its borders and providing a public demonstration of new weaponry, tactics and strategy.

The strikes have involved aircraft never before tested in combat, including the Sukhoi Su-34 strike fighter, which NATO calls the Fullback, and a ship-based cruise missile fired more than 900 miles from the Caspian Sea, which, according to some analysts, surpasses the U.S. equivalent in technological capability.

Russia’s jets have struck in support of Syrian ground troops advancing from areas under the control of the Syrian government and might soon back an Iranian-led offensive that appeared to be forming Wednesday in the northern province of Aleppo. That coordination reflects what U.S. officials described as months of meticulous planning behind Russia’s first military campaign outside former Soviet borders since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Taken together, the operations reflect what officials and analysts described as a little-noticed — and still incomplete — modernization that has been under way in Russia for several years, despite strains on the country’s budget. And that, as with Russia’s intervention in neighboring Ukraine, has raised alarms in the West.

In a report this month for the European Council on Foreign Relations, Gustav Gressel argued that Putin has overseen the most rapid transformation of the country’s armed forces since the 1930s.

“Russia is now a military power that could overwhelm any of its neighbors, if they were isolated from Western support,” wrote Gressel, a former officer of the Austrian military.

Russia’s fighter jets are, for now at least, conducting nearly as many strikes in a typical day against fighters opposing the government of President Bashar Assad as the U.S.-led coalition targeting the Islamic State has been carrying out each month this year.

The operation in Syria — still relatively limited — has become, in effect, a testing ground for an increasingly confrontational and defiant Russia under Putin. In fact, as Putin himself suggested Sunday, the operation could be intended to send a message to the United States and the West about the restoration of the country’s military prowess and global reach after decades of post-Soviet decay.

China said on Wednesday it had no plans to send its military to Syria to fight with Russian forces after reports in overseas media that it was planning to do so.

Chinese media has picked up Russian and Middle Eastern news reports that China would fight alongside Russia in Syria, and that China’s sole aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, could participate too.

Chinese media has also described these reports as speculative nonsense.

“As far as I know there are no such plans,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing, when asked if China had or would send forces to Syria. “Recently, the Liaoning aircraft carrier went to carry out technical tests and military drills,” she added, without elaborating.

Russia last month began air strikes on targets in Syria in a dramatic escalation of foreign involvement in the civil war. This has been criticised by the West as an attempt to prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, rather than its purported aim of attacking Islamic State.

The United States and its allies have also been carrying out air strikes in Syria against Islamic State, and have supported opposition groups fighting Assad.

The Liaoning is generally considered by military experts to be a training carrier, while China builds its own carriers and works out how to operate them.

China’s Defence Ministry said it had nothing to add to Hua’s comments.

The Global Times, an influential tabloid run by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, said in an editorial on Wednesday it was “unfounded rumour” that China would interfere militarily in Syria.

“It’s not China that brought chaos to Syria, and China has no reason to rush to the frontlines and play a confrontational role,” it said.

While China generally votes with fellow permanent United Nations Security Council member Russia on the Syria issue, it has expressed concern about interference in Syria’s internal affairs and repeatedly called for a political solution.

China, a low-key diplomatic player in the Middle East despite its dependence on the region for its oil, has warned many times military action cannot end the crisis.

 

Russian computer attacks have become more brazen and more destructive as the country grows increasingly at odds with the U.S. and European nations over military goals first in Ukraine and now Syria.

Along with reported computer breaches of a French TV network and the White House, a number of attacks now being attributed to Russian hackers and some not previously disclosed have riveted intelligence officials as relations with Russia have deteriorated. These targets include the Polish stock market, the U.S. House of Representatives, a German steel plant that suffered severe damage and The New York Times.

U.S. officials worry that any attempt by the Russian government to use vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure like global stock exchanges, power grids and airports as pressure points against the West could lead to a broader conflict, according to two people familiar with the debate inside government and who asked to not to be named when discussing intelligence matters. When NATO officials met last week, they voiced alarm about Russia’s rapid involvement in Syria, including the firing of cruise missiles, and vowed the biggest reinforcement of their collective defense since the end of the Cold War.

The Warsaw Stock Exchange is but one example of the heightened cyber-activity. Hackers who rifled the exchange last October, in a breach that set off alarms among Western intelligence agencies, proclaimed they were Muslim militants angry over Poland’s support for a bombing campaign against the Islamic State.

“It’s beginning,” the group posted online in a file-sharing site called Pastebin, heavily used by the cyberunderground. “To be continued! Allahu Akbar!”

While stealing some data, the attackers also made dozens of client logins public, opening the exchange’s systems to additional chaos from cybercriminals of all stripes. It was sabotage by crowd-sourcing.

Except the infiltrators weren’t Islamic militants at all. Behind the smokescreen was a group of hackers with ties to the Russian government, according to three people familiar with the Polish investigation. The incident was viewed by Polish investigators as a stark warning to the country, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization intent on driving a strong alliance response to Russia’s moves in eastern Ukraine.

The attack on the exchange, which said in a statement to Bloomberg News that the trading platform wasn’t affected, has prompted the Polish government to begin an upgrade of computer systems in government offices, the financial sector and hospitals, said one of the people.

As in other domains, Russians acting directly for the government or with its approval are testing the boundaries of the cyberbattlefield, according to an assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies. The attacks are often called state sponsored by security companies working to arrest the damage, though it is difficult to ascertain which ones might have been done by intelligence agencies and which ones by criminals with access to sophisticated tools hoping to curry government favor.

“They have let loose the hounds,” said Tom Kellermann, chief security officer at Trend Micro, a Tokyo-based security firm.

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, rejected suggestions that Russia is behind the attacks. “These are absolutely unsubstantiated allegations, which are often absurd,” he said. “We also have been the targets of attacks, which again shows that everyone can just as easily be subject to such attacks. International cooperation is required to expose and deal with these threats. But unfortunately, we don’t always see a constructive approach on this issue from our partners.”

Possible Miscalculations

Russia is called America’s biggest cyberthreat by U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and it appears more willing than ever to push up against U.S. doctrine, which holds that destructive hacking attacks could be considered acts of war. So far, the U.S. has not made any public response to the suspected acts.

Cyberspace is a messy arena for fighting. Miscalculations, even by skilled operators, are common, fueling concerns about what could happen to essential infrastructure. And Russia is one of the few nations that intelligence officials say can successfully mask its identity in cyberspace, even from the U.S. National Security Agency.

The attacks, though, are mounting, leaving officials looking for ways to redraw lines that have already shifted significantly over the last 18 months.

Raising alarms in Europe, Russian hackers damaged a blast furnace early last year at a plant in Germany owned by ThyssenKrupp AG, the country’s biggest steelmaker, according to four people familiar with the attack. In that case, malware found in the system had previously been tied to Russian espionage activity, but U.S. intelligence agencies have not linked the incident directly to the Russian government, said one person familiar with the matter.

Kilian Roetzer, a spokesman for ThyssenKrupp, denied any such attack occurred, as has every other company operating a blast furnace in Germany. A furnace attack was disclosed by the German government last year without naming any company or perpetrator.

In April, the same group that last year attacked the Warsaw stock exchange hit the operations of TV5Monde, according to security firms tracking the incidents. The attack shut down the major French television network on April 8 and 9, and restoring the system fully will cost of 15 million euros ($17 million), its executives estimate.

Essential Infrastructure

Russian hackers have stepped up surveillance of power grids and energy supply networks in the U.S., Europe and Canada, a provocative move given government sensitivity to tampering with essential infrastructure for millions of people, according to two people familiar with that activity.

U.S. authorities who spoke on condition of anonymity interpret it as a warning. “Russia is exceptionally skilled,” said Mike Buratowski, vice president of cybersecurity services for Fidelis Cybersecurity. “If you see them, chances are it’s a decision: Russia is OK with you seeing them, or wants you to see them.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has continued to pour money and manpower into the country’s hacking forces since returning to the presidency in 2012, according to U.S. officials. “While I can’t go into detail here, the Russian cyberthreat is more severe than we had previously assessed,” Clapper told a congressional committee in February.

As economic sanctions have punished Russia for its aggression in Ukraine, the Russian leader has used a combination of regular and irregular cyberforces that are now jockeying for resources and accolades from Moscow, according to Jason Lewis, a former network exploitation specialist with the U.S. Defense Department.

“They’re being successful. If you’re doing something that’s working, you’re going to keep doing it,” said Lewis, now chief collection and intelligence officer for LookingGlass Cyber Solutions Inc., based in Arlington, Virginia.

Hits by Russian hackers on the e-mail systems of the White House and the State Department were disclosed earlier this year, but they represent only a fraction of the overall activity, according to government and private security specialists.

The same group that breached the Warsaw exchange and the French TV station recently penetrated the e-mail system of the U.S. House of Representatives, giving Russia access to the communications of lawmakers, according to a person familiar with that investigation. Dan Weiser, a House spokesman, declined to comment, citing a general policy not to discuss information security systems.

And in July and August, U.S. government agencies were bombarded with poisoned e-mails loaded with malware sent by two different Russian hacking groups. Trend Micro’s Kellermann said one of those waves targeted 2,000 senior officials, including at least one member of President Barack Obama’s cabinet, as well as the personal e-mail accounts of their spouses.

Another person familiar with the e-mails said the attacks were certain to be detected because of their profusion and the high ranks of the targets, but that did not make them totally unsuccessful. Investigators from the NSA and Department of Homeland Security spent hundreds of hours trying to contain the impact, hacking into servers controlling the attacks and scrubbing government networks, according to people familiar with their efforts.

The NSA and DHS declined to comment on the incidents or on Russia’s possible cyber-activities.

Sophisticated Hackers

Putin enjoys some significant advantages over his adversaries in cyberspace. Russia is home to the most sophisticated collection of cybercriminals anywhere in the world, and the government maintains close relationships with many of them, according to assessments by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. intelligence agencies.

Trend Micro says the group that attacked the Warsaw exchange — nicknamed variously by cybersecurity companies as APT 28, Fancy Bear or Pawn Storm — is most likely staffed by a loose confederation of the country’s best criminal hackers. In some instances, they have better skills than the hackers employed by the Russian government, and they have become more motivated after events in Ukraine to help the government, Kellermann said.

“These guys have been untouchable for years and now they are coming back to the stable to pay homage,” Kellermann said.

Warsaw exchange officials said the damage was limited. “The trading system of Warsaw Stock Exchange itself and data concerning the trading system were not jeopardized,” Justyna Rachanska, an exchange spokeswoman, said in a statement. The breached systems, she said, included an investment simulator and a Web portal for managing the exchange’s upgrade to a new trading system.

The stock exchange’s web site was forced to shut down for about two hours, according to one of the people, and the hackers gained deep intelligence about the exchange’s technology road map.

Poland’s Internal Security Agency said information about the incident is classified and declined to comment.

Some private security experts say that APT 28 could be a specialized unit of the FSB, the Russian state security agency. The group has been linked to hacks of Putin’s domestic opponents, including the rock group Pussy Riot, and counter-terrorism missions, tasks that would be natural for Russia’s main intelligence agency.

APT 28 is using more than run-of-the-mill crimeware. A confidential analysis prepared by Google Inc. of one of the group’s tools, known as X-Agent, described it as an extremely sophisticated version of a remote access tool, or RAT, that uses encryption and other techniques on par with U.S. hacking software.

Google Analysis

Bloomberg News obtained a copy of Google’s 41-page analysis, which shows how X-Agent users can swap in various modules for most any conceivable mission, much like the RATs used by the NSA’s elite teams, according to a person familiar with that software.

The APT 28 group was also behind an attack last year on the New York Times, starting when hackers took over the personal e-mail account of a Washington-based national security reporter and then targeted more than 50 other staff members, according to two people familiar with the investigation. The hackers failed to get into the paper’s primary network, one of the people said. A spokeswoman for the company declined to comment on the incident.

A different group of Russian hackers hit the White House and State Department in incidents disclosed over the last year. That group is called APT 29 by cybersecurity company FireEye and called TEMP.Monkeys by ISight Partners, a cyber-intelligence company that works closely with the federal government. The name refers to monkey videos used in “spear-phishing” e-mails designed to get White House staffers to click on them.

“APT 29 employs some of the most sophisticated techniques we’ve seen,” said Laura Galante, the director of FireEye’s intelligence team that specializes in state-sponsored espionage.

“The fact that we’re talking in detail about different Russian groups is pretty remarkable,” Galante said. “China has always had lots of groups with distinct behaviors and victim types; we’re now starting to understand Russian groups in a similar fashion. The uptick in activity over the last few years, especially since Ukraine, has provided us with more data points about potentially state-sponsored groups.”

Assessing Motives

U.S. and European intelligence agencies have struggled in recent months to assess what they see as Russia’s newly bellicose behavior in cyberspace.

Intelligence specialists say the hit on TV5Monde may have been a veiled anti-terrorism operation. Like the Warsaw intruders, the hackers claimed to be Islamic militants, the CyberCaliphate, and may have sought to identify other hackers who are actually sympathetic to that cause.

Over the last 18 months, Russian actors have increased the surveillance of electrical grids and pipeline networks throughout North America and Europe, gathering information on critical systems that could be used to launch devastating digital attacks, according to government alerts and cybersecurity firms. The deployed malware, known as Havex, was also found in the damaged German blast furnace, according to people familiar with the steel mill investigation.

Physical Destruction

The steel mill attack was a rare example of computers being used to cause physical destruction, carrying strong political overtones for the German government.

The hackers hijacked a computer that controlled the blast furnace, inserting malware that caused the machine to overheat and melt down, according to three people familiar with the incident and Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security, or BSI, which disclosed the attack in November 2014 without linking it to Russia. The result was “massive damage,” according to the BSI report.

Security specialists initially speculated the damage might have been an accident by hackers trying to gather data on how the mill operates, but details have since emerged that point to intentional destruction.

Sometime in late 2013 or early 2014, the hackers began by penetrating the mill’s office computers with spear-phishing e-mails and social-engineering tricks against employees, according to a private-security specialist briefed on the attack. Then they found and tunneled through a trusted network connection that led to the factory floor. Finally, they broke into the digital controls for the blast furnace, tampering with a system of temperature sensors and motors that controlled gas flow. They remotely disabled the furnace’s ability to shut down. The entire process took weeks.

Digital traces left in the system immediately pointed back to Russia, but not conclusively to the government itself, according to a U.S. intelligence assessment, as explained by a person familiar with that analysis.

The attack more than a year later of TV5Monde suggests such events will continue unless the U.S. and others can develop an effective response, said John Hultquist, head of cyber-espionage threat intelligence at ISight Partners.

“To anyone looking for signs that things are getting a lot worse, there are plenty of them out there,” Hultquist said. “Everyone seems a lot less timid about using methods other than just intelligence collection now. They are simply more aggressive and less restrained.” (bloomberg)

Reverend Franklin Graham wonders why the world refuses to condemn the brutal acts of the Islamic State for what it truly is—Christian genocide.

“It is genocide — and the world seems largely silent about it. Genocide perpetrated by the Islamic State against Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities of Syria and Iraq. And their methods are unimaginably cruel and heinous,” he deplored on his Facebook page.

Just a few days ago, Graham learned that three Assyrian Christians were executed on Sept. 23, which is the Muslim “Feast of Sacrifice.” The ISIS militants even threatened to kill more hostages. Graham was also horrified by reports that 12 other Christians were murdered on Aug. 28.

“Why were they killed? For refusing to renounce their faith in Jesus Christ. Eyewitnesses said that ISIS militants crucified a 12-year-old Christian boy and his Syrian missionary father along with two other men after mercilessly brutalising them,” he said. “They cut off the boy’s fingertips to try to get his father to convert to Islam. They left their bodies hanging on the crosses for two days under signs reading ‘infidels.'”

Their atrocities did not stop there, since the ISIS militants publicly raped two Christian women that same day, then beheaded them along with six other individuals who refused to convert to Islam.

What’s worse about these brutal acts is that ISIS militants are carrying them out in the guise of religion.

“The Islamist extremists were carrying out what they believe is Allah’s proscribed punishment for those that leave Islam or take part in a fight against Islam,” Ryan Mauro, national security analyst for the Clarion Project, told Fox News. “If you want to defeat ISIS and other Islamist extremists, you need to defeat their doctrinal foundation.”

Much has been written about the young men and women who join the Islamic State. We are familiar with their biographies and pathways, backgrounds and motivations.

But virtually nothing is known about those who quit: the ‘defectors’ who didn’t like what they saw, abandoned their comrades, and fled the Islamic State. Yet their stories could be key to stopping the flow of foreign fighters, countering the group’s propaganda, and exposing its lies and hypocrisy.

For a short paper, ICSR collected all published stories about people who have left the Islamic State and spoken about their defection. We discovered a total of 58 – a sizable number but probably only a fraction of those who are disillusioned or ready to leave.

The Defectors

They are a new and growing phenomenon. Of the 58 cases, nearly two thirds of the defections took place in the year 2015. One third happened during the summer months alone.

The defectors’ experiences are diverse. Not everyone has become a fervent supporter of liberal democracy. Some may, in fact, have committed crimes. They were all, at some point, enthusiastic supporters of the most violent and viciously totalitarian organization of our age. Yet they are now its worst enemies.

The quality of their testimony varies, and the precise circumstances and reasons for leaving IS aren’t always clear. What convinced me that, as a whole, their stories are credible is how consistent their messages were.

The Narratives

Among the 58 defectors, we found four narratives that were particularly strong:

1)    One of the most persistent criticisms was the extent to which the group is fighting against other Sunni rebels. According to the defectors, toppling the Assad regime didn’t seem to be a priority, and little was done to help the (Sunni) Muslims who were targeted by it.

Most of the group’s attention, they said, was consumed by quarrels with other rebels and the leadership’s obsession with ‘spies’ and ‘traitors’. This was not the kind of jihad they had come to Syria and Iraq to fight.

2)    Another narrative dealt with the group’s brutality. Many complained about atrocities and the killing of innocent civilians. They talked about the random killing of hostages, the systematic mistreatment of villagers, and the execution of fighters by their own commanders.

None of the episodes they mentioned involved minorities, however. Brutality didn’t seem to be a universal concern: it was seen through a sectarian lens, and caused outrage mostly when its victims were other Sunnis.

3)    The third narrative was corruption. Though none believed that corruption was systemic, many disapproved of the conduct of individual commanders and ‘emirs’. Syrian defectors criticized the privileges that were given to foreigners, for which they claimed was no justification based on the group’s philosophy or Islam in general.

While many were willing to tolerate the hardships of war, they found it impossible to accept instances of unfairness, inequality, and racism. “This is not a holy war”, said a defector from India, whom the group had forced to clean toilets because of his color of skin.

4)    A fourth narrative was that life under the Islamic State was harsh and disappointing. The defectors who expressed this view were typically the ones who had joined the group for ‘selfish’ reasons – and who quickly realized that none of the luxury goods and cars that they had been promised would materialize.

For others, their experience in combat didn’t live up to their expectations of action and heroism. One of them referred to his duties as ‘dull’ and complained about the lack of deployments, while another claimed that foreign fighters were ‘exploited’ and used as cannon fodder.

Why This Matters

These stories matter. The defectors’ very existence shatters the image of unity and determination that the group seeks to convey. Their narratives highlight the group’s contradictions and hypocrisies. Their example may encourage others to follow, and their credibility can help deter wannabes from joining.

In my view, governments and civil society should recognize the defectors’ value and make it easier for them to speak out. Where possible, governments should assist them in resettlement and ensure their safety. They also need to remove legal disincentives that prevent them from going public.

Not every defector is a saint, and not all of them are ready or willing to stand in the public spotlight. But their voices are strong and clear: ‘The Islamic State is not protecting Muslims. It is killing them’. They need to be heard. 

In addition to ISIL’s atrocities inflicted every day on the Iraqi and Syrian people living in communities the terrorist group has seized – the crucifixions, beheadings, sexual enslavement and violence, rape, and denial of every human right – ISIL is also engaged in other crimes, including its attempt to erase cultural heritage that does not conform to its narrow ideology.

ISIL’s latest reported cultural destruction target is the Arch of Triumph in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra – a monument thought to be 2,000 years old. It is now added to the list of ISIL’s demolition of shrines or statues that predate the founding of Islam, like the Assyrian winged bulls in Nineveh, the historic lions in Raqqa, and the tomb of Jonah in Mosul.

What ISIL doesn’t destroy of Syria and Iraq’s ancient history and heritage, it sells, Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted recently at a symposium at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City:

”These ancient coins, stone, glass, and mosaic fragments travel organized routes through black markets in the Middle East, Europe and the Persian Gulf. The profits return to line the pockets of these extremists – funding more savagery, more terror, and more devastation.”

It is for this reason the United States has developed Red Lists with the International Council of Museums to help law enforcement officials recognize looted objects; it’s why the U.S. has stepped up efforts through the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL to encourage greater action against the illicit trade; it’s why the United States works so closely with international law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and around the world; and it’s why the United States recently announced that it is offering, through the State Department’s Rewards for Justice Program, up to $5 million dollars for information leading to the significant disruption of the sale and/or the trade of antiquities, by, for, or on behalf of ISIL.

Calling the refusal to deal in conflict antiquities both a legal and moral obligation, Mr. Blinken said in the face of the urgent challenges of today, “it is critical that we hold…fast to the fabric of our humanity — to our gifts of reason and wisdom, our expressions of art and culture, and our universal values of civility freedom and dignity. These are exactly what ISIL seeks to destroy.”

“Chalang” magazine has published a study carried out by “terrorism analysis center”, which emphasizes that Islamic state organization in Syria and Iraq has a huge fortune estimated at 2200 billion dollars, or about 1937 billion euros.

The European Centre, which was established in 2014 said that ISIS has added 200 billion to its fortune in a matter of one year, the oil is no longer the only financial source, where the compulsory taxes now generate an important income.

The study prepared by “John Charles Preezar” and “Damien Martinez” attributed this super-rich status goes back to ISIS control more and more on Syria, especially after it seized last September the new oil fields, as it is now controlling 80% of Syria’s production and 10% of Iraq’s production.

The report added that the revenues of oil fell by half because of the bombing of the International coalition’s bombing , which hinders black the transfer of oil process, so tax has become its first source, rising from 360 million to one billion dollars in ” Nineveh province” (where there is Mosul) 50 % of the wages of employees who are 60 thousand , this generates between 500 and 600 million dollars per year”.

According to the same source, between (5 and 10) percent of Turkey’s imports of cotton comes from fields that are exploited by ISIS west of Syria, as the organization gets some money as well from the gas trade, wheat and drugs, in addition to donations which it is receiving from its supporters.

Finally, the United Nations confirmed in a report issued last August that ISIS trade in human beings in an orderly and specific with worldwide: children less than 10 years at 150 euros, adolescents 110 euros, women between 20 and 30 years to 70 euros, meaning that value is determined by age that facilitates the exploitation process and brainwashing

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, one of the world’s most wanted men, is counting on veteran jihadis and former Iraqi army officers who form the core of the militant movement to take over if he is killed.

New questions arose over Islamic State‘s leadership structure and who might succeed Baghdadi after Iraq’s military said on Sunday air strikes had hit a convoy carrying him, though Iraqi security officials later denied this.

Baghdadi, who rarely appears in public and delivers few audio speeches, makes the vast majority of decisions, including which of the group’s enemies should be killed.

“In just the past few weeks, the Iranian regime has reportedly begun to send hundreds of additional forces to Syria to prop up the murderous Assad regime together with Russia.

Iran is moving forward with plans to acquire the Russian S-300 air defense system, one of the most advanced in the world,” said U.S. Senator John McCain in his statement.

McCain also accused Teheran of in violation of a United Nations Security Council resolution as the country tested a new advanced long-range ballistic missile.

And perhaps most disturbingly, Iran has convicted an American journalist, Jason Rezaian – one of four Americans being held in Iran – on trumped-up espionage charges in a secret trial with no evidence whatsoever,” the Senator said.

The Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee noted that Barack Obama’s Administration had been ignoring and downplaying the broader threat that Iran poses.

The fate of the Isis leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, remains unclear after the Iraqi air force struck a meeting of the militant group’s senior command.

Hospital officials said eight Isis commanders were killed but al-Baghdadi’s body was not among them, while the Iraqi military said it believed he was “carried away by a vehicle” after his convoy was hit.

The circumstances surrounding the attempted strike on the Isis leader are, like much of the detail surrounding his own life, steeped in uncertainty. Here is what we do know about one of the most wanted men in the world.

What he looks like

Aside from footage of the Isis leader giving a speech in Mosul, Iraq, upon the declaration of Isis’s so-called “caliphate” last year, there are only two confirmed photos of al-Baghdadi in existence.

One is a grainy image held by the Iraqi government showing al-Baghdadi as a young man wearing a suit. The other, recovered this year from American military archives, shows al-Baghdadi in 2004 after his arrest following the US invasion.

Other, poor-quality images claiming to show the Isis leader have been posted more recently to social media. But none have been verified, and the lack of pictorial evidence of the man has contributed to an aura of mystery surrounding him.

How old he is

US records on al-Baghdadi exist from the time when he was held at Camp Bucca, the main American-run prison in Iraq after Abu Ghraib was embroiled in a torture scandal.

They say he was born in Samarra in 1971, making him around 44 years old.

He’s an educated man

Al-Baghdadi is believed to hold an undergraduate degree, masters and PhD from the Islamic University in Baghdad.

He quickly rose up through the ranks of al-Qaeda after he became radicalised during the Iraq War, and emerged as leader of the splinter group that later became Isis.

There’s a bounty on his head 

The Isis leader is listed as a terrorist by the FBI and since 2011 there has been a $10 million reward posted for information which could lead to his capture.

He is not the US’s most-wanted man, however. The bounty on his head remains lower than that of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda leader who cast him aside when that group denounced Isis.

He was a polite, football-loving student

When he was younger, al-Baghdadi was a keen footballer with his local mosque’s team, according to The Telegraph.

Former friends described him as their best player, one calling him the “Messi of the team”. He married around the year 2000 after completing his PHD, and lived the quiet life of a family man until the 2003 invasion.