BEIRUT (AP) – Turki al-Binali has crisscrossed the Islamic State group’s self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq with a pistol holstered at his side, delivering fiery sermons in which the 30-year-old provides religious justification for its bloody rampage across the region.
The young Bahraini preacher, who has emerged as one of the extremists’ leading ideologues, promotes a version of Islam that has been rejected, not only by mainstream religious authorities, but even by veteran jihadi clerics now increasingly out of touch with the new generation of radicals.
Al-Binali, who sports long hair and a dark beard, is not the most senior cleric in the group – that title belongs to a secretive Iraqi named Abdullah Abdul-Samad – but he is perhaps the most visible, said Hisham al-Hashimi, an Iraq-based researcher who closely follows jihadi groups.
“He is a very important part of the religious council of Daesh,” al-Hashimi said, using an alternate Arabic acronym for the group. “He is like the fence that defends the ideology of Daesh from penetration.” Al-Binali also wrote the official biography of the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The young preacher has given lectures and engaged online with critics and supporters. His edicts and statements are printed and distributed in areas under the group’s control, said an Islamic State group fighter in Syria, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he is not a spokesman for the group.