School document sheds light on background of secretive Islamic State leader
PUBLISHED : Friday, 20 February, 2015, 10:16pm
UPDATED : Saturday, 21 February, 2015, 2:56am
The Washington Post
One of the few pictures of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.Photo: AP
The certificate from Samarra High School for Boys shows a student strong in mathematics and geography.
His behaviour is marked as "good", and he has a solid 80 per cent average. One may have expected that the young man had a bright future. Instead, it seems, he chose a life in which he presides over mass killings, suicide bombings and beheadings.
The document, first published on Wednesday by the German broadcaster ARD, purports to show the grades of an Iraqi known by the pseudonym Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the notorious Islamic State group. An official from Samarra's department of education said he had seen the original certificate and confirmed it was genuine.
Issued under the name Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim, the document tallies with the scant information known about the secretive Islamic State leader, who was born Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al-Badri in 1971 in Samarra, a city 130km north of Baghdad. His tribal name, Badri, is not shown.
A passport photo attached to the top of the document shows a young man with thick eyebrows who bears a striking resemblance to the extremist.
The images and documents, if verified, would offer a rare glimpse into the background of Baghdadi.
Before his appearance in a Mosul mosque in July, when he announced the formation of an Islamic caliphate, only one grainy image of Baghdadi had been made public.
The high school certificate shows that Baghdadi graduated in 1991, at the age of 19 or 20 - not unusual in Iraq, where students are made to repeat the year if they fail a subject. Baghdadi failed his final year once, the document shows.
Out of the six subjects he took, English language appears to be the one he struggled with most - scoring 57 per cent.
In mathematics, he scores a near-perfect 98 per cent, geography 90 per cent, Arabic language 81 per cent, economics 80 per cent and history 75 per cent.
The certificate shows that he chose to head to the Islamic law college at Baghdad University, where he is reported to have later earned a PhD.
