Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIS Leader Known for His Brutality, Is Dead at 48

President Tump announced the death of al-Baghdadi, who transformed the Islamic State into a global terrorist network that conquered territory the size of Britain and directed horrific attacks in the West.

NY TIMES

Trump says Islamic State leader Baghdadi blew himself up as U.S. troops closed in

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died during a U.S. raid in Syria, a breakthrough more than five years after he launched the Islamic State's self-proclaimed caliphate.

• By Missy Ryan and Dan Lamothe

800 Terrorists Rout 30K Iraqi Soldiers. 1/2 Million Flee. Second Iraqi City Seized By Extremist Warlord More 'Violent Than Bin Laden'

Warlord Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (inset) and his Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) seized control of another Iraqi provincial capital just a day of gaining power in the country's second biggest city Mosul. This afternoon militants took control of Tikri and freed hundreds of prisoners as well as closing in on Iraq's biggest oil refinery. A video uploaded today by ISIS allegedly shows militants gathering at an undisclosed location in Iraq's Nineveh province. Meanwhile half a million people were on the move fleeing the group which also controls a big swathe of civil war-torn Syria where they have become notorious for their reign of fundamentalist terror marked by summary shootings, beheadings and even crucifixions.  [Daily Mail ]

DAILY BEAST

The Iraqi army is fast losing control of the country's major citites, and it didn't take much. ISIS, or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham, has managed to capture not only Mosul, but also Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein. In the case of Mosul, 30,000 Iraqi soldiers ran away from 800 ISIS fighters. ISIS has taken control of the Iraqi army's major base in the city and stolen up to $480 million in bank notes. Around 300 inmates have reportedly been freed since Tikrit fell when it was attacked by ISIS from the north, west, and south. ISIS became notorious for its fighting in the Syrian civil war, and for being so extreme that al Qaeda disassociated itself from it. Mass beheadings have been reported in both Tikrit and Mosul. Now, the government is scrambling to secure its cities. "This signifies that the army has been built on weak foundations," said Hamad al-Mutlaq, a member of the Iraqi parliament's defence committee. "The Iraqi government is the one to blame and should be held responsible for this failure; it has been unable to build a healthy state and unable to defend it."


A propaganda video uploaded by jihadist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant today, which allegedly shows ISIL militants gathering at an undisclosed location in Iraq's Nineveh province  [Daily Mail ]

As many as 500,000 Iraqis have been forced to flee the country's second biggest city of Mosul after militants from an al-Qaeda splinter group seized control [ [Daily Mail ]

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2654861/Escape-Mosul-150-000-Iraqis-overnight-refugees-flee-terror-al-Qaeda-splinter-group-taken-countrys-second-biggest-city.html#ixzz34N2Ys9R1
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N.Y. Times: The militants overran the city of Tikrit, seized facilities in the strategic oil refining town of Baiji, and threatened an important Shiite shrine in Samarra as they moved south toward Baghdad.The remarkably rapid advance of the Sunni militants, who on Tuesday seized the northern city of Mosul as Iraqi forces fled or surrendered, reflects the spillover of the Sunni insurgency in Syria and the inability of Iraq’s Shiite-led government to pacify the country after American forces departed in 2011 following eight years of war and occupation.