New revelations shed light on Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's private life

Shafaq News/ The enigmatic life of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the former leader of ISIS and self-proclaimed caliph, continues to intrigue, especially regarding his intimate relationships with his wives and captives.

Those revelations were made public in interviews with some of his captives, which will be aired on Al-Arabiya channel next weekend.

Among these revelations, testimonies from some of his captives, known as "sabaya", Yazidi women enslaved by ISIS, recalling painful details of their ordeals at the hands of al-Baghdadi himself and his wife.

One such captive, Nour, daughter of ISIS commander Abu Abdullah al-Zubayr, disclosed that she was married to al-Baghdadi at the age of 14, indicating that the marriage was sanctioned before his infamous speech in Mosul.

Nour revealed that al-Baghdadi married her on the same day as his landmark sermon in Mosul, indicating that she lived alongside his nine other wives and captives in the same residence.

"I was forced to stay with him when the wanted persons list was released," she said.

When asked how he spends his day at home, she said he rarely left his room, where he spends most of the day.

"He communicates with his wives only at night," she said. "Phones were forbidden."

Nour said that al-Baghdadi's Syrian and Chechen wives shared a troubled relationship. He opted to separate them into different households later, according to her account.

Al-Baghdadi's family did not receive any personal protection during their movement from Iraq to Syria and then to Turkey, she added.

Echoing previous accounts, Nour reiterated attempts by her and al-Baghdadi's first wife, Asmaa, to escape to Turkiye before al-Baghdadi demanded the return of his Syrian and Chechen wives to Syria, while Nour and Asmaa, both Iraqi nationals, remained in Turkiye.

The scale of multiple marriages among the leadership of the organization led Nour to dub the self-styled Islamic State a "state of marriages."

In October 2019, Washington announced that US troops had killed al-Baghdadi in an operation in northwestern Syria, around five years after he proclaimed an Islamic "caliphate" which he and his fighters ruled with brutality across much of Iraq and neighboring Syria.

ISIS was territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017 and two years later in Syria. But, remnants of the group continue to attack civilians and security forces in both countries.

Al-Baghdadi's first wife, Asmaa Mohammed, told Al Arabiya in a previous interview that he and other leaders of the group were "obsessed" with women.

Asmaa, who married al-Baghdadi in 1999, said that he owned over 10 Yazidi women as "slaves", adding that al-Baghdadi had also, at one point married a 13-year-old girl.

After ISIS gained control over vast territories in Syria and Iraq, al-Baghdadi became increasingly "arrogant", harboring expectations of international recognition, according to Mohammed, who added that he held aspirations for his group to extend its control into Europe.

"Foreign women played a major role in attracting fighters," she said.

She said he was pursuing a master's degree at an Islamic university during that period.

She described him as an "ordinary individual without any extremist inclinations." However, Asmaa claimed that everything changed after al-Baghdadi was apprehended by US forces in 2004 "for no reason."

According to her, his ideology underwent a profound transformation during his one-year incarceration.

Asmaa expressed that al-Baghdadi placed significant importance on his personal safety, prioritizing it above all else. She said that she never witnessed al-Baghdadi directly participating in any combat activities.

In Raqqa, formerly the de facto Syria capital of ISIS, Asmaa identified Mansour, a 23-year-old man, as al-Baghdadi's closest associate. She said al-Baghdadi arranged the marriage of his 12-year-old daughter, Umaimah, to Mansour.