title: Manitoba

text: In 1990, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney attempted to pass the Meech Lake Accord, a series of constitutional amendments to persuade Quebec to endorse the "Canada Act 1982". Unanimous support in the legislature was needed to bypass public consultation. Cree politician Elijah Harper opposed because he did not believe First Nations had been adequately involved in the Accord's process, and thus the Accord failed.


title: Manitoba

text: Glen Murray, elected in Winnipeg in 1998, became the first openly gay mayor of a large North American city. The province was impacted by major flooding in 2009 and 2011. In 2004, Manitoba became the first province in Canada to ban indoor smoking in public places. In 2013, Manitoba was the second province to introduce accessibility legislation, protecting the rights of persons with disabilities.


title: Manitoba

text: Manitoba is bordered by the provinces of Ontario to the east and Saskatchewan to the west, the territory of Nunavut to the north, and the US states of North Dakota and Minnesota to the south. Manitoba is at the centre of the Hudson Bay drainage basin, with a high volume of the water draining into Lake Winnipeg and then north down the Nelson River into Hudson Bay. This basin's rivers reach far west to the mountains, far south into the United States, and east into Ontario. Major watercourses include the Red, Assiniboine, Nelson, Winnipeg, Hayes, Whiteshell and Churchill rivers. Most of Manitoba's inhabited south has developed in the prehistoric bed of Glacial Lake Agassiz. This region, particularly the Red River Valley, is flat and fertile; receding glaciers left hilly and rocky areas throughout the province.


title: Manitoba

text: The province has a saltwater coastline bordering Hudson Bay and more than 110,000 lakes, covering approximately 15.6 percent or of its surface area. Manitoba's major lakes are Lake Manitoba, Lake Winnipegosis, and Lake Winnipeg, the tenth-largest freshwater lake in the world. A total of of traditional First Nations lands and boreal forest on Lake Winnipeg's east side were officially designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site known as Pimachiowin Aki in 2018.


title: Manitoba

text: Baldy Mountain is the province's highest point at above sea level, and the Hudson Bay coast is the lowest at sea level. Riding Mountain, the Pembina Hills, Sandilands Provincial Forest, and the Canadian Shield are also upland regions. Much of the province's sparsely inhabited north and east lie on the irregular granite Canadian Shield, including Whiteshell, Atikaki, and Nopiming Provincial Parks.


title: Manitoba

text: Extensive agriculture is found only in the province's southern areas, although there is grain farming in the Carrot Valley Region (near The Pas). Around 11 percent of Canada's farmland is in Manitoba.


title: Manitoba

text: Manitoba has an extreme continental climate. Temperatures and precipitation generally decrease from south to north and increase from east to west. Manitoba is far from the moderating influences of mountain ranges or large bodies of water. Because of the generally flat landscape, it is exposed to cold Arctic high-pressure air masses from the northwest during January and February. In the summer, air masses sometimes come out of the Southern United States, as warm humid air is drawn northward from the Gulf of Mexico. Temperatures exceed numerous times each summer, and the combination of heat and humidity can bring the humidex value to the mid-40s. Carman, Manitoba, recorded the second-highest humidex ever in Canada in 2007, with 53.0. According to Environment Canada, Manitoba ranked first for clearest skies year round and ranked second for clearest skies in the summer and for the sunniest province in the winter and spring.


title: Manitoba

text: Southern Manitoba (including the city of Winnipeg), falls into the humid continental climate zone (Köppen Dfb). This area is cold and windy in the winter and often has blizzards because of the open landscape. Summers are warm with a moderate length. This region is the most humid area in the prairie provinces, with moderate precipitation. Southwestern Manitoba, though under the same climate classification as the rest of Southern Manitoba, is closer to the semi-arid interior of Palliser's Triangle. The area is drier and more prone to droughts than other parts of southern Manitoba. This area is cold and windy in the winter and has frequent blizzards due to the openness of the Canadian Prairie landscape. Summers are generally warm to hot, with low to moderate humidity.


title: Manitoba

text: Southern parts of the province, just north of Tornado Alley, experience tornadoes, with 16 confirmed touchdowns in 2016. In 2007, on 22 and 23 June, numerous tornadoes touched down, the largest an F5 tornado that devastated parts of Elie (the strongest recorded tornado in Canada).


title: Manitoba

text: The province's northern sections (including the city of Thompson) fall in the subarctic climate zone (Köppen climate classification "Dfc"). This region features long and extremely cold winters and brief, warm summers with little precipitation. Overnight temperatures as low as occur on several days each winter.


title: Manitoba

text: Manitoba natural communities may be grouped within five ecozones: boreal plains, prairie, taiga shield, boreal shield and Hudson plains. Three of these—taiga shield, boreal shield and Hudson plain—contain part of the Boreal forest of Canada which covers the province's eastern, southeastern, and northern reaches.


title: Manitoba

text: Forests make up about , or 48 percent, of the province's land area. The forests consist of pines (Jack Pine, Red Pine, Eastern White Pine), spruces (White Spruce, Black Spruce), Balsam Fir, Tamarack (larch), poplars (Trembling Aspen, Balsam Poplar), birches (White Birch, Swamp Birch) and small pockets of Eastern White Cedar.


title: Manitoba

text: Two sections of the province are not dominated by forest. The province's northeast corner bordering Hudson Bay is above the treeline and is considered tundra. The tallgrass prairie once dominated the south central and southeastern parts including the Red River Valley. Mixed grass prairie is found in the southwestern region. Agriculture has replaced much of the natural prairie but prairie still can be found in parks and protected areas; some are notable for the presence of the endangered western prairie fringed orchid.


title: Manitoba

text: Manitoba is especially noted for its northern polar bear population; Churchill is commonly referred to as the "Polar Bear Capital". Other large animals, including moose, white-tailed deer, black bears, cougars, lynx, and wolves, are common throughout the province, especially in the provincial and national parks. There is a large population of red sided garter snakes near Narcisse; the dens there are home to the world's largest concentration of snakes.


title: Manitoba

text: Manitoba's bird diversity is enhanced by its position on two major migration routes, with 392 confirmed identified species; 287 of these nesting within the province. These include the great grey owl, the province's official bird, and the endangered peregrine falcon.


title: Manitoba

text: Manitoba's lakes host 18 species of game fish, particularly species of trout, pike, and goldeye, as well as many smaller fish.


title: Manitoba

text: At the 2021 census, Manitoba had a population of 1,342,153, more than half of which is in Winnipeg. Although initial colonization of the province revolved mostly around homesteading, the last century has seen a shift towards urbanization; Manitoba is the only Canadian province with over fifty-five percent of its population in a single city.


title: Manitoba

text: The largest ethnic group in Manitoba is English (16.1%), followed by Scottish (14.5%), German (13.6%), Ukrainian (12.6%), Irish (11.0%), French (9.3%), Filipino (7.0%), Métis (6.8%), Polish (6.0%), First Nations (4.5%), Mennonite (3.9%), Russian (3.7%), Dutch (3.3%), Indian (3.0%), and Icelandic (2.4%). Indigenous peoples (including Métis) are Manitoba's fastest-growing ethnic group, representing 13.6 percent of Manitoba's population as of 2001 (some reserves refused to allow census-takers to enumerate their populations or were otherwise incompletely counted). Gimli, Manitoba is home to the largest Icelandic community outside of Iceland.


title: Manitoba

text: As of the 2021 Canadian Census, the ten most spoken languages in the province included English (1,288,950 or 98.6%), French (111,790 or 8.55%), Tagalog (73,440 or 5.62%), Punjabi (42,820 or 3.28%), German (41,980 or 3.21%), Hindi (26,980 or 2.06%), Spanish (23,435 or 1.79%), Mandarin (16,765 or 1.28%), Cree (16,115 or 1.23%), and Plautdietsch (15,055 or 1.15%). The question on knowledge of languages allows for multiple responses.


title: Manitoba

text: Most Manitobans belong to a Christian denomination: on the 2021 census, 54.2% reported being Christian, followed by 2.7% Sikh, 2.0% Muslim, 1.4% Hindu, 0.9% Jewish, and 0.8% Indigenous spirituality. 36.7% reported no religious affiliation. The largest Christian denominations by number of adherents were the Roman Catholic Church with 21.2%; the United Church of Canada with 5.8%; and the Anglican Church of Canada with 3.3%.


title: Manitoba

text: Manitoba has a moderately strong economy based largely on natural resources. Its Gross Domestic Product was C$50.834 billion in 2008. The province's economy grew 2.4 percent in 2008, the third consecutive year of growth. The average individual income in Manitoba in 2006 was C$25,100 (compared to a national average of C$26,500), ranking fifth-highest among the provinces. As of October 2009, Manitoba's unemployment rate was 5.8 percent.


title: Manitoba

text: Manitoba's economy relies heavily on agriculture, tourism, electricity, oil, mining, and forestry. Agriculture is vital and is found mostly in the southern half of the province, although grain farming occurs as far north as The Pas. The most common agricultural activity is cattle husbandry, followed by assorted grains and oilseed. Manitoba is the nation's largest producer of sunflower seed and dry beans, and one of the leading sources of potatoes. Portage la Prairie is a major potato processing centre. Richardson International, one of the largest oat mills in the world, also has a plant in the municipality.


title: Manitoba

text: Manitoba's largest employers are government and government-funded institutions, including crown corporations and services like hospitals and universities. Major private-sector employers are The Great-West Life Assurance Company, Cargill Ltd., and Richardson International. Manitoba also has large manufacturing and tourism sectors. Churchill's Arctic wildlife is a major tourist attraction; the town is a world capital for polar bear and beluga whale watchers. Manitoba is the only province with an Arctic deep-water seaport, at Churchill.


title: Manitoba

text: In January 2018, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business claimed Manitoba was the most improved province for tackling red tape.


title: Manitoba

text: Manitoba's early economy depended on mobility and living off the land. Indigenous Nations (Cree, Ojibwa, Dene, Sioux and Assiniboine) followed herds of bison and congregated to trade among themselves at key meeting places throughout the province. After the arrival of the first European traders in the 17th century, the economy centred on the trade of beaver pelts and other furs. Diversification of the economy came when Lord Selkirk brought the first agricultural settlers in 1811, though the triumph of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) over its competitors ensured the primacy of the fur trade over widespread agricultural colonization.


title: Manitoba

text: HBC control of Rupert's Land ended in 1868; when Manitoba became a province in 1870, all land became the property of the federal government, with homesteads granted to settlers for farming. Transcontinental railways were constructed to simplify trade. Manitoba's economy depended mainly on farming, which persisted until drought and the Great Depression led to further diversification.


title: Manitoba

text: CFB Winnipeg is a Canadian Forces Base at the Winnipeg International Airport. The base is home to flight operations support divisions and several training schools, as well as the 1 Canadian Air Division and Canadian NORAD Region Headquarters. 17 Wing of the Canadian Forces is based at CFB Winnipeg; the Wing has three squadrons and six schools. It supports 113 units from Thunder Bay to the Saskatchewan/Alberta border, and from the 49th parallel north to the high Arctic. 17 Wing acts as a deployed operating base for CF-18 Hornet fighter–bombers assigned to the Canadian NORAD Region.


title: Manitoba

text: The two 17 Wing squadrons based in the city are: the 402 ("City of Winnipeg" Squadron), which flies the Canadian designed and produced de Havilland Canada CT-142 Dash 8 navigation trainer in support of the 1 Canadian Forces Flight Training School's Air Combat Systems Officer and Airborne Electronic Sensor Operator training programs (which trains all Canadian Air Combat Systems Officer); and the 435 ("Chinthe" Transport and Rescue Squadron), which flies the Lockheed C-130 Hercules tanker/transport in airlift search and rescue roles, and is the only Air Force squadron equipped and trained to conduct air-to-air refuelling of fighter aircraft.


title: Manitoba

text: Canadian Forces Base Shilo (CFB Shilo) is an Operations and Training base of the Canadian Forces east of Brandon. During the 1990s, Canadian Forces Base Shilo was designated as an Area Support Unit, acting as a local base of operations for Southwest Manitoba in times of military and civil emergency. CFB Shilo is the home of the 1st Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, both battalions of the 1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group, and the Royal Canadian Artillery. The Second Battalion of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (2 PPCLI), which was originally stationed in Winnipeg (first at Fort Osborne, then in Kapyong Barracks), has operated out of CFB Shilo since 2004. CFB Shilo hosts a training unit, 3rd Canadian Division Training Centre. It serves as a base for support units of 3rd Canadian Division, also including 3 CDSG Signals Squadron, Shared Services Unit (West), 11 CF Health Services Centre, 1 Dental Unit, 1 Military Police Regiment, and an Integrated Personnel Support Centre. The base houses 1,700 soldiers.


title: Manitoba

text: After the control of Rupert's Land was passed from Great Britain to the Government of Canada in 1869, Manitoba attained full-fledged rights and responsibilities of self-government as the first Canadian province carved out of the Northwest Territories. The Legislative Assembly of Manitoba was established on 14 July 1870. Political parties first emerged between 1878 and 1883, with a two-party system (Liberals and Conservatives). The United Farmers of Manitoba appeared in 1922, and later merged with the Liberals in 1932. Other parties, including the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), appeared during the Great Depression; in the 1950s, Manitoban politics became a three-party system, and the Liberals gradually declined in power. The CCF became the New Democratic Party of Manitoba (NDP), which came to power in 1969. Since then, the Progressive Conservatives and the NDP have been the dominant parties.


title: Manitoba

text: Like all Canadian provinces, Manitoba is governed by a unicameral legislative assembly. The executive branch is formed by the governing party; the party leader is the premier of Manitoba, the head of the executive branch. The head of state, King Charles III, is represented by the Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba, who is appointed by the Governor General of Canada on advice of the Prime Minister. The head of state is primarily a ceremonial role, although the Lieutenant Governor has the official responsibility of ensuring Manitoba has a duly constituted government.


title: Manitoba

text: The Legislative Assembly consists of the 57 Members elected to represent the people of Manitoba. The premier of Manitoba is Heather Stefanson of the PC Party, after Brian Pallister's resignation. The province is represented in federal politics by 14 Members of Parliament and six Senators.


title: Manitoba

text: Manitoba's judiciary consists of the Court of Appeal, the Court of King's Bench, and the Provincial Court. The Provincial Court is primarily for criminal law; 95 per cent of criminal cases in Manitoba are heard here. The Court of King's Bench is the highest trial court in the province. It has four jurisdictions: family law (child and family services cases), civil law, criminal law (for indictable offences), and appeals. The Court of Appeal hears appeals from both benches; its decisions can only be appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada.


title: Manitoba

text: Both English and French are official languages of the legislature and courts of Manitoba, according to section 23 of the "Manitoba Act, 1870" (part of the Constitution of Canada). In April 1890, the Manitoba legislature attempted to abolish the official status of French and ceased to publish bilingual legislation. However, in 1985, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in the Reference re Manitoba Language Rights that section 23 still applied, and that legislation published only in English was invalid (unilingual legislation was declared valid for a temporary period to allow time for translation).


title: Manitoba

text: Although French is an official language for the purposes of the legislature, legislation, and the courts, the "Manitoba Act" does not require it to be an official language for the purpose of the executive branch (except when performing legislative or judicial functions). Hence, Manitoba's government is not completely bilingual. The Manitoba French Language Services Policy of 1999 is intended to provide a comparable level of provincial government services in both official languages. According to the 2006 Census, 82.8 percent of Manitoba's population spoke only English, 3.2 percent spoke only French, 15.1 percent spoke both, and 0.9 percent spoke neither.


title: Manitoba

text: In 2010, the provincial government of Manitoba passed the "Aboriginal Languages Recognition Act", which gives official recognition to seven indigenous languages: Cree, Dakota, Dene, Inuktitut, Michif, Ojibway and Oji-Cree.


title: Manitoba

text: Manitoba has two Class I railways: Canadian National Railway (CN) and Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). Winnipeg is centrally located on the main lines of both carriers, and both maintain large inter-modal terminals in the city. Via Rail offers transcontinental and Northern Manitoba passenger service from Winnipeg's Union Station. Numerous small regional and short-line railways also run trains within Manitoba: the Hudson Bay Railway, the Southern Manitoba Railway, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Manitoba, Greater Winnipeg Water District Railway, and Central Manitoba Railway.


title: Manitoba

text: Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport, Manitoba's largest airport, is one of only a few 24-hour unrestricted airports in Canada and is part of the National Airports System. A new, larger terminal opened in October 2011. It is the seventh busiest airport in Canada by passenger traffic, serving 4,484,343 passengers in 2018, and the 11th busiest airport by aircraft movements. The airport handles approximately of cargo annually, making it the third largest cargo airport in the country. Winnipeg is a major sorting facility for both FedEx and Purolator, and receives daily trans-border service from UPS.


title: Manitoba

text: The Port of Churchill is the only Arctic deep-water port in Canada. It is nautically closer to ports in Northern Europe and Russia than any other port in Canada. It has four deep-sea berths for the loading and unloading of grain, general cargo and tanker vessels. The port is served by the Hudson Bay Railway. The port and railway came under complete community and Indigenous ownership in 2021, after AGT Food and Ingredients and Fairfax Financial transferred their shares in Arctic Gateway to OneNorth – a consortium of community and Indigenous partners which owned the other fifty percent of Arctic Gateway's shares.


title: Manitoba

text: Public schools follow a provincially mandated curriculum in either French or English. There are sixty-five funded independent schools in Manitoba, including three boarding schools. These schools must follow the Manitoban curriculum and meet other provincial requirements. There are forty-four non-funded independent schools, which are not required to meet those standards. Public schools in Manitoba fall under the regulation of one of thirty-seven school divisions within the provincial education system (except for the Manitoba Band Operated Schools, which are administered by the federal government). In 2021, the provincial government announced a plan to merge all English-language school divisions into 15 regional catchment areas, overseen by a provincial education authority.


title: Manitoba

text: There are five universities in Manitoba, regulated by the Ministry of Advanced Education and Literacy. Four of these universities are in Winnipeg: the University of Manitoba, the largest and most comprehensive; the University of Winnipeg, a liberal arts school primarily focused on undergrad studies downtown; Université de Saint-Boniface, the province's only French-language university; and the Canadian Mennonite University, a religious-based institution. The Université de Saint-Boniface, established in 1818 and now affiliated with the University of Manitoba, is the oldest university in Western Canada. Brandon University, formed in 1899 and in Brandon, is the province's only university not in Winnipeg.


title: Manitoba

text: Manitoba has fifty-four public library systems. Of these, Winnipeg Public Library has the largest collections, at 1.1 million items as of 2020.


title: Manitoba

text: The Minister of Culture, Heritage, Tourism and Sport is responsible for promoting and, to some extent, financing Manitoban culture. Manitoba is the birthplace of the Red River Jig, a combination of Indigenous pow-wows and European reels popular among early settlers. Manitoba's traditional music has strong roots in Métis and First Nations culture, in particular the old-time fiddling of the Métis. Manitoba's cultural scene also incorporates classical European traditions. The Winnipeg-based Royal Winnipeg Ballet (RWB), is Canada's oldest ballet and North America's longest continuously operating ballet company; it was granted its royal title in 1953 under Queen Elizabeth II. The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (WSO) performs classical music and new compositions at the Centennial Concert Hall. Manitoba Opera, founded in 1969, also performs out of the Centennial Concert Hall.


title: Manitoba

text: Le Cercle Molière (founded 1925) is the oldest French-language theatre in Canada, and Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre (founded 1958) is Canada's oldest English-language regional theatre. Manitoba Theatre for Young People was the first English-language theatre to win the Canadian Institute of the Arts for Young Audiences Award, and offers plays for children and teenagers as well as a theatre school. The Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG), Manitoba's largest art gallery and the sixth largest in the country, hosts an art school for children; the WAG's permanent collection comprises over twenty thousand works, with a particular emphasis on Manitoban and Canadian art.


title: Manitoba

text: The 1960s pop group The Guess Who was formed in Manitoba, and later became the first Canadian band to have a No. 1 hit in the United States; Guess Who guitarist Randy Bachman later created Bachman–Turner Overdrive (BTO) with fellow Winnipeg-based musician Fred Turner. Fellow rocker Neil Young, grew up in Manitoba, and later played in Buffalo Springfield, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Folk rock band Crash Test Dummies formed in the late 1980s in Winnipeg and were the 1992 Juno Awards Group of the Year.


title: Manitoba

text: Several prominent Canadian films were produced in Manitoba, such as "The Stone Angel", based on the Margaret Laurence book of the same title, "The Saddest Music in the World", "Foodland", "For Angela", and "My Winnipeg". Major films shot in Manitoba include "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" and "Capote", both of which received Academy Award nominations. "Falcon Beach", an internationally broadcast television drama, was filmed at Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba.


title: Manitoba

text: Manitoba has a strong literary tradition. Bertram Brooker won the first-ever Governor General's Award for Fiction in 1936. Cartoonist Lynn Johnston, author of the comic strip "For Better or For Worse", was a finalist for a 1994 Pulitzer Prize and inducted into the Canadian Cartoonist Hall of Fame. Margaret Laurence's "The Stone Angel" and "A Jest of God" were set in Manawaka, a fictional town representing Neepawa; the latter title won the Governor General's Award in 1966. Carol Shields won both the Governor General's Award and the Pulitzer Prize for "The Stone Diaries". Gabrielle Roy, a Franco-Manitoban writer, won the Governor General's Award three times. A quote from her writings is featured on the Canadian $20 bill. Joan Thomas was nominated for the Governor General's Award twice and won in 2019 for "Five Wives". The province has also been home to many of the key figures in Mennonite literature, including Governor General Award-winning Miriam Toews, Giller winner David Bergen, Armin Wiebe and many others. Sandra Birdsell, whose fiction focusses on her Métis and Mennonite heritage, was thrice nominated for the Governor General's Literary Award for English Language Fiction, and also for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2001.


title: Manitoba

text: Festivals take place throughout the province, with the largest centred in Winnipeg. The Winnipeg Folk Festival has an annual attendance of over 70,000. The Festival du Voyageur is an annual ten-day event held in Winnipeg's French Quarter, and is Western Canada's largest winter festival. It celebrates Canada's fur-trading past and French-Canadian heritage and culture. Folklorama, a multicultural festival run by the Folk Arts Council, receives around 400,000 pavilion visits each year, of which about thirty percent are from non-Winnipeg residents. The Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival is an annual alternative theatre festival, the second-largest festival of its kind in North America (after the Edmonton International Fringe Festival).


title: Manitoba

text: Manitoban museums document different aspects of the province's heritage. The Manitoba Museum is the largest museum in Manitoba and focuses on Manitoban history from prehistory to the 1920s. The full-size replica of the Nonsuch is the museum's showcase piece. The Manitoba Children's Museum at The Forks presents exhibits for children. There are two museums dedicated to the native flora and fauna of Manitoba: the Living Prairie Museum, a tall grass prairie preserve featuring 160 species of grasses and wildflowers, and FortWhyte Alive, a park encompassing prairie, lake, forest and wetland habitats, home to a large herd of bison. The Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre houses the largest collection of marine reptile fossils in Canada. Other museums feature the history of aviation, marine transport, and railways in the area. The Canadian Museum for Human Rights is the first Canadian national museum outside of the National Capital Region.


title: Manitoba

text: Winnipeg has two daily newspapers: the "Winnipeg Free Press", a broadsheet with the highest circulation numbers in Manitoba, as well as the "Winnipeg Sun", a smaller tabloid-style paper. There are several ethnic weekly newspapers, including the weekly French-language "La Liberté", and regional and national magazines based in the city. Brandon has two newspapers: the daily "Brandon Sun" and the weekly "Wheat City Journal". Many small towns have local newspapers.


title: Manitoba

text: There are five English-language television stations and one French-language station based in Winnipeg. The Global Television Network (owned by Canwest) is headquartered in the city. Winnipeg is home to twenty-one AM and FM radio stations, two of which are French-language stations. Brandon's five local radio stations are provided by Astral Media and Westman Communications Group. In addition to the Brandon and Winnipeg stations, radio service is provided in rural areas and smaller towns by Golden West Broadcasting, Corus Entertainment, and local broadcasters. CBC Radio broadcasts local and national programming throughout the province. Native Communications is devoted to indigenous programming and broadcasts to many of the isolated native communities as well as to larger cities.


title: Manitoba

text: Manitoba has five professional sports teams: the Winnipeg Blue Bombers (Canadian Football League), the Winnipeg Jets (National Hockey League) and Manitoba Moose (American Hockey League), the Winnipeg Goldeyes (American Association), and Valour FC (Canadian Premier League). The province was previously home to another team called the Winnipeg Jets, which played in the World Hockey Association and National Hockey League from 1972 until 1996, when financial troubles prompted a sale and move of the team, renamed the Phoenix Coyotes. A second incarnation of the Winnipeg Jets returned, after True North Sports & Entertainment bought the Atlanta Thrashers and moved the team to Winnipeg in time for the 2011 hockey season. Manitoba has two major junior-level ice hockey teams, the Western Hockey League's Brandon Wheat Kings and Winnipeg Ice, and one junior football team, the Winnipeg Rifles of the Canadian Junior Football League.


title: Manitoba

text: The province is represented in university athletics by the university of Manitoba Bisons, the university of Winnipeg Wesmen, and the Brandon University Bobcats. All three teams compete in the Canada West Universities Athletic Association, a regional division of U Sports.


title: Manitoba

text: Curling is an important winter sport in the province with Manitoba producing more men's national champions than any other province, while additionally in the top 3 women's national champions, as well as multiple world champions in the sport. The province also hosts the world's largest curling tournament in the MCA Bonspiel.


title: Manitoba

text: Although not as prominent as ice hockey and curling, long track speed skating also features as a notable and top winter sport in Manitoba. The province has produced some of the world's best female speed skaters including Susan Auch and the country's top Olympic medal earners Cindy Klassen and Clara Hughes.


title: Yukon

text: Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,744 as of March 2022. Whitehorse, the territorial capital, is the largest settlement in any of the three territories.


title: Yukon

text: Yukon was split from the North-West Territories in 1898 as the Yukon Territory. The federal government's "Yukon Act", which received royal assent on March 27, 2002, established Yukon as the territory's official name, though "Yukon Territory" is also still popular in usage and Canada Post continues to use the territory's internationally approved postal abbreviation of "YT". In 2021, territorial government policy was changed so that “"The" Yukon” would be recommended for use in official territorial government materials.


title: Yukon

text: Though officially bilingual (English and French), the Yukon government also recognizes First Nations languages.


title: Yukon

text: At , Yukon's Mount Logan, in Kluane National Park and Reserve, is the highest mountain in Canada and the second-highest on the North American continent (after Denali in the U.S. state of Alaska). Most of the Yukon has a subarctic climate, characterized by long, cold winters and brief, warm summers. The Arctic Ocean coast has a tundra climate.


title: Yukon

text: Notable rivers include the Yukon River as well as the Pelly, Stewart, Peel, White, Liard, and Tatshenshini rivers.


title: Yukon

text: The territory is named after the Yukon River, the longest river in Yukon. The name itself is from a contraction of the words in the Gwich'in phrase "chųų gąįį han", which means "white water river" and refers to "the pale colour" of glacial runoff in the Yukon River.


title: Yukon

text: The territory is the approximate shape of a right triangle, bordering the U.S. state of Alaska to the west and northwest for mostly along longitude 141° W, the Northwest Territories to the east and British Columbia to the south. Its northern coast is on the Beaufort Sea. Its ragged eastern boundary mostly follows the divide between the Yukon Basin and the Mackenzie River drainage basin to the east in the Mackenzie mountains.


title: Yukon

text: Most of the territory is in the watershed of its namesake, the Yukon River. The southern Yukon is dotted with a large number of large, long and narrow glacier-fed alpine lakes, most of which flow into the Yukon River system. The larger lakes include Teslin Lake, Atlin Lake, Tagish Lake, Marsh Lake, Lake Laberge, Kusawa Lake and Kluane Lake. Bennett Lake on the Klondike Gold Rush trail is a lake flowing into Nares Lake, with the greater part of its area within Yukon. Other watersheds in the territory include the Mackenzie River, the Peel Watershed and the Alsek–Tatshenshini, and a number of rivers flowing directly into the Beaufort Sea. The two main Yukon rivers flowing into the Mackenzie in the Northwest Territories are the Liard River in the southeast and the Peel River and its tributaries in the northeast.


title: Yukon

text: Canada's highest point, Mount Logan (), is in the territory's southwest. Mount Logan and a large part of the Yukon's southwest are in Kluane National Park and Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Other national parks include Ivvavik National Park and Vuntut National Park in the north.


title: Yukon

text: Notable widespread tree species within the Yukon are the black spruce and white spruce. Many trees are stunted because of the short growing season and severe climate.


title: Yukon

text: While the average winter temperature in the Yukon is mild by Canadian arctic standards, no other place in North America gets as cold as the Yukon during extreme cold snaps. The temperature has dropped down to three times, 1947, 1952, and 1968. The most extreme cold snap occurred in February 1947 when the abandoned town of Snag dropped down to .


title: Yukon

text: Unlike most of Canada where the most extreme heat waves occur in July, August, and even September, the Yukon's extreme heat tends to occur in June and even May. The Yukon has recorded three times. The first time was in June 1969 when Mayo recorded a temperature of . 14 years later this record was almost beaten when Forty Mile recorded in May 1983. The old record was finally broken 21 years later in June 2004 when the Mayo Road weather station, located just northwest of Whitehorse, recorded a temperature of .


title: Yukon

text: Long before the arrival of Europeans, central and southern Yukon was populated by First Nations people, and the area escaped glaciation. Sites of archeological significance in the Yukon hold some of the earliest evidence of the presence of human habitation in North America. The sites safeguard the history of the first people and the earliest First Nations of the Yukon.


title: Yukon

text: The volcanic eruption of Mount Churchill in approximately 800 AD in what is now the U.S. state of Alaska blanketed the southern Yukon with a layer of ash which can still be seen along the Klondike Highway, and which forms part of the oral tradition of First Nations peoples in the Yukon and further south in Canada.


title: Yukon

text: Coastal and inland First Nations had extensive trading networks. European incursions into the area began early in the 19th century with the fur trade, followed by missionaries. By the 1870s and 1880s, gold miners began to arrive. This drove a population increase that justified the establishment of a police force, just in time for the start of the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897. The increased population coming with the gold rush led to the separation of the Yukon district from the Northwest Territories and the formation of the separate Yukon Territory in 1898.


title: Yukon

text: The 2016 census reported a Yukon population of 35,874, an increase of 5.8% from 2011. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2011, the highest among all the Canadian territories. Statistics Canada has estimated Yukon's 2022 Q3 population to be 43,789, an increase of 17.5% from the 2016 census. This is the largest percentage increase for any Canadian province or territory.


title: Yukon

text: Unlike in other Canadian provinces and territories, Statistics Canada uses the entire territory as a single at-large census division.


title: Yukon

text: According to the 2016 Canada Census the majority of the territory's population was of European descent, although it has a significant population of First Nations communities across the territory. The 2011 National Household Survey examined the Yukon's ethnocultural diversity and immigration. At that time, 87.7% of residents were Canadian-born and 24.2% were of Indigenous origin. The most common countries of birth for immigrants were the United Kingdom (15.9%), the Philippines (15.0%), and the United States (13.2%). Among very recent immigrants (between 2006 and 2011) living in the Yukon, 63.5% were born in Asia.


title: Yukon

text: The most commonly reported mother tongue among the 33,145 single responses to the 2011 Canadian census was English at 28,065 (). The second-most common was 1,455 () for French. Among 510 multiple respondents, 140 of them () reported a mother tongue of both English and French, while 335 () reported English and a " language" and 20 () reported French and a " language".


title: Yukon

text: The Yukon's "Language Act" "recognises the significance" of the territory's aboriginal languages in the Yukon, and permits their use in Legislative Assembly proceedings, although only English and French are available for laws and court proceedings.


title: Yukon

text: The 2021 Canadian census reported that 59.7% of Yukoners reported having no religious affiliation, the highest percentage in Canada. The most frequently reported religious affiliation was Christianity, reported by 46.2% of residents, followed by Sikhism at 1.0%.


title: Yukon

text: The Yukon's major industry is mining (lead, zinc, silver, gold, asbestos and copper). The government acquired the land from the Hudson's Bay Company in 1870 and split it from the Northwest Territories in 1898 to fill the need for local government created by the population influx of the gold rush. Thousands of these prospectors moved to the territory, ushering a period of Yukon history recorded by authors such as Robert W. Service and Jack London. The memory of this period and the early days of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as well as the territory's scenic wonders and outdoor recreation opportunities, makes tourism the second most important industry in the territory.


title: Yukon

text: Manufacturing, including furniture, clothing, and handicrafts, follows in importance, along with hydroelectricity. The traditional industries of trapping and fishing have declined. As of 2012, the government sector directly employs approximately 6,300 out of a labour force of 20,800, on a population of 27,500.


title: Yukon

text: On May 1, 2015, the Yukon modified its Business Corporations Act, in an effort to attract more benefits and participants to its economy. One amendment to the BCA lets a proxy be given for voting purposes. Another change will allow directors to pursue business opportunities declined by the corporation, a practice off-limits in most other jurisdictions due to the inherent potential for conflicts of interest. One of the changes will allow a corporation to serve as a director of a subsidiary registered in Yukon. The legislation also allows companies to add provisions in their articles of incorporation giving directors blanket approval to sell off all of the company's assets without requiring a shareholder vote. If provided for by a unanimous shareholders agreement, a corporation is not required to have directors at all. There is increased flexibility regarding the location of corporate records offices, including the ability to maintain a records office outside of Yukon so long as it is accessible by electronic means.


title: Yukon

text: The Yukon's tourism motto is "Larger than life". The Yukon's tourism relies heavily on its natural environment, and there are many organized outfitters and guides available for activities such as but not limited to hunting, angling, canoeing/kayaking, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, ice climbing, and dog sledding. These activities are offered both in an organized setting or in the backcountry, which is accessible by air or snowmobile. The Yukon's festivals and sporting events include the Adäka Cultural Festival, Yukon International Storytelling Festival, and the Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous. The Yukon's latitude enables the view of aurora borealis.


title: Yukon

text: The Yukon Government maintains a series of territorial parks including, parks such as Herschel Island Qikiqtaruk Territorial Park, Tombstone Territorial Park, and Fishing Branch Ni'iinlii'njik Park. Coal River Springs Territorial Park) Parks Canada, a federal agency of the Government of Canada, also maintains three national parks and reserves within the territory, Kluane National Park and Reserve, Ivvavik National Park, and Vuntut National Park.


title: Yukon

text: The Yukon is also home to 12 National Historic Sites of Canada. The sites are also administered by Parks Canada, with five of the 12 sites being located within national parks. The territory is host to a number of museums, including the Copperbelt Railway & Mining Museum, the SS "Klondike" boat museum, the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre in Whitehorse; as well as the Keno City Mining Museum in Keno City. The territory also holds a number of enterprises that allows tourists to experience pre-colonial and modern cultures of Yukon's First Nations and Inuit.


title: Yukon

text: The Yukon has a wide array of cultural and sporting events that attract artists, local residents, and tourists. Annual events include the Adäka Cultural Festival, Dawson City Music Festival, Yukon International Storytelling Festival, Yukon Quest dog sled race, Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous, as well as Klondike Gold Rush memorials. and the Northern Lights Centre.


title: Yukon

text: The Yukon's Aboriginal culture is also strongly reflected in such areas as winter sports, as in the Yukon Quest sled dog race. The modern comic-book character Yukon Jack depicts a heroic aboriginal persona. Similarly, the territorial government also recognizes that First Nations and Inuit languages plays a part in cultural heritage of the territory; these languages include Tlingit, and the less common Tahltan, as well as seven Athapaskan languages, Upper Tanana, Gwich'in, Hän, Northern Tutchone, Southern Tutchone, Kaska, and Tagish, some of which are rare.


title: Yukon

text: Notable Yukon artists include Jim Robb and Ted Harrison, whose paintings have become iconic for their depictions of historic and contemporary life and culture in the Yukon.


title: Yukon

text: With the Klondike Gold Rush, a number of folk songs from the Yukon became popular, including "Rush to the Klondike" (1897, written by W. T. Diefenbaker), "The Klondike Gold Rush", "I've Got the Klondike Fever" (1898) and "La Chanson du Klondyke".


title: Yukon

text: A notable cultural and tourist feature is the legacy of the Klondike Gold Rush (1897–1899), which inspired contemporary writers of the time such as Jack London, Robert W. Service, and Jules Verne, and which continues to inspire films and games, such as Mae West's "Klondike Annie" and "The Yukon Trail" .


title: Yukon

text: Executive power in the Yukon is formally vested in the Territorial Commissioner, who plays an analogous role to that of a provincial lieutenant governor. As guarantor of responsible government in the territory, the Commissioner generally acts on the advice of the Premier of Yukon, who commands the confidence of the elected Legislative Assembly. Unlike lieutenant governors, commissioners are not direct representatives of the King but are instead appointed by the federal government.


title: Yukon

text: The Yukon has numerous political parties and candidates who stand for election to the 19 seats in the Yukon Legislative Assembly. Those elected to the legislature are known as members of the Legislative Assembly and may use the post nominal letters "MLA". The three parties presently represented are the centre-leaning Yukon Liberal Party (8 seats) – who currently form government, the centre-right leaning Yukon Party (8), and the centre-left leaning Yukon New Democratic Party (3).


title: Yukon

text: The 9th and current premier of Yukon is Sandy Silver, who represents the electoral district of Klondike as its MLA. Silver took office following the 2016 Yukon general election, where his Liberals won a majority government. After the 2021 Yukon general election, the Liberals were reduced to a minority government, though they were able to continue governing due to a formal agreement with the NDP.


title: Yukon

text: The vast majority of Yukon's land mass is unorganized, with no defined municipal or otherwise supralocal level of government like in other parts of Canada.


title: Yukon

text: For most individuals in the Yukon though, local level governance is provided by municipalities. The Yukon's eight municipalities cover only of the territory's land mass but are home to of its population.


title: Yukon

text: Municipal governments are created by the Yukon Government in accordance with the "Municipal Act" of 2001. Municipal governments provide "jurisdiction services, facilities, or things that a local government considers necessary or desirable for all or part of its community". Classifications of municipalities under the "Municipal Act" include cities and towns. Whitehorse is the capital of the Yukon and its only city. The remaining seven municipalities are towns, of which four were villages that were continued as towns upon adoption of the 2001 "Municipal Act".


title: Yukon

text: The usage is somewhat confusing: according to the Municipal Act of 2001 villages are legally given the status of towns, but may call themselves villages in English. In French they are called villages, and the French word ville, which means town is not used for them. Instead larger settlements are called ville and even bigger ones grande ville, apart from Dawson which is called a cité, and in English is also called a city. Keno City, though unincorporated, also bears city in its name.


title: Yukon

text: In the 19th century, the Yukon was a segment of North-Western Territory that was administered by the Hudson's Bay Company, and then of the Northwest Territories administered by the federal Canadian government. It only obtained a recognizable local government in 1895 when it became a separate district of the Northwest Territories. In 1898, it was made a separate territory with its own commissioner and an appointed Territorial Council.


title: Yukon

text: Prior to 1979, the territory was administered by the commissioner who was appointed by the federal Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. The commissioner had a role in appointing the territory's "Executive Council", served as chair, and had a day-to-day role in governing the territory. The elected "Territorial Council" had a purely advisory role. In 1979, a significant degree of power was devolved from the commissioner and the federal government to the territorial legislature which, in that year, adopted a party system of responsible government. This change was accomplished through a letter from Jake Epp, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, rather than through formal legislation.


title: Yukon

text: In preparation for responsible government, political parties were organized and ran candidates to the Yukon Legislative Assembly for the first time in 1978. The Progressive Conservatives won these elections and formed the first party government of Yukon in January 1979. The Yukon New Democratic Party (NDP) formed the government from 1985 to 1992 under Tony Penikett and again from 1996 under Piers McDonald until being defeated in 2000. The conservatives returned to power in 1992 under John Ostashek after having renamed themselves the Yukon Party. The Liberal government of Pat Duncan was defeated in elections in November 2002, with Dennis Fentie of the Yukon Party forming the government as premier.


title: Yukon

text: The "Yukon Act", passed on April 1, 2003, formalized the powers of the Yukon Government and devolved additional powers to the territorial government (e.g., control over land and natural resources). As of 2003, other than criminal prosecutions, the Yukon Government has much of the same powers as provincial governments, and the other two territories are looking to obtaining the same powers.


title: Yukon

text: At the federal level, the Yukon is represented in the Parliament of Canada by one member of Parliament (MP) and one senator. MPs from Canadian territories are full and equal voting representatives and residents of the territory enjoy the same rights as other Canadian citizens. One Yukon MP, Erik Nielsen, served as Deputy Prime Minister under Brian Mulroney, while another, Audrey McLaughlin, was the leader of the federal New Democratic Party (NDP) from 1989 to 1995.


title: Yukon

text: A substantial minority of the territory's population is First Nations. An umbrella land claim agreement representing 7,432 members of 14 different First Nations was signed with the federal government in 1993. Eleven of the 14 Yukon First Nations have negotiated and signed comprehensive land claim and self-government agreements. The 14 First Nations speak eight different languages.


title: Yukon

text: The territory once had an Inuit settlement, located on Herschel Island off the Arctic Ocean coast. This settlement was dismantled in 1987 and its inhabitants relocated to the neighbouring Northwest Territories. As a result of the Inuvialuit Final Agreement, the island is now a territorial park and is known officially as Qikiqtaruk Territorial Park, Qikiqtaruk being the name of the island in Inuvialuktun.


title: Yukon

text: Before modern forms of transportation, the rivers and mountain passes were the main transportation routes for the coastal Tlingit people trading with the Athabascans of which the Chilkoot Pass and Dalton Trail, as well as the first Europeans.


title: Yukon

text: Erik Nielsen Whitehorse International Airport serves as the air transport infrastructure hub, with scheduled direct flights to Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna, Calgary, Edmonton, Yellowknife, Inuvik, Ottawa, Dawson City, Old Crow, Juneau and Frankfurt (pre-COVID). Whitehorse International Airport is also the headquarters and primary hub for Air North, Yukon's Airline. Every Yukon community is served by an airport or community aerodrome. The communities of Dawson City and Old Crow have regularly scheduled service through Air North. Air charter businesses exist primarily to serve the tourism and mining exploration industries.


title: Yukon

text: The railway ceased operation in the 1980s with the first closure of the Faro mine. It is now run during the summer months for the tourism season, with operations between Carcross and Skagway, Alaska.


title: Yukon

text: The Alaska-Alberta Railway Development Corporation (A2A) is planning to construct a new railway line that would cross the Yukon, connecting Watson Lake and possibly Carmacks but not Whitehorse.


title: Yukon

text: Today, major land routes include the Alaska Highway, the Klondike Highway (between Skagway and Dawson City), the Haines Highway (between Haines, Alaska, and Haines Junction), and the Dempster Highway (linking Inuvik, Northwest Territories to the Klondike Highway, and the only road access route to the Arctic Ocean, in Canada), all paved except for the Dempster. Other highways with less traffic include the Robert Campbell Highway linking Carmacks (on the Klondike Highway) to Watson Lake (Alaska Highway) via Faro and Ross River, and the Silver Trail linking the old silver mining communities of Mayo, Elsa and Keno City to the Klondike Highway at the Stewart River bridge. Air travel is the only way to reach the far-north community of Old Crow.


title: Yukon

text: From the Gold Rush until the 1950s, riverboats plied the Yukon River, mostly between Whitehorse and Dawson City, with some making their way further to Alaska and over to the Bering Sea, and other tributaries of the Yukon River such as the Stewart River. Most of the riverboats were owned by the British-Yukon Navigation Company, an arm of the White Pass and Yukon Route, which also operated a narrow gauge railway between Skagway, Alaska, and Whitehorse.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (; born Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Ali Muhammad al-Badri al-Samarrai (); 28 July 1971 – 27 October 2019), was an Iraqi militant and the first caliph of the Islamic State from 2014 until his death in 2019.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Baghdadi was born in Samarra, Iraq, and obtained graduate degrees in Islamic theology in the late 1990s and 2000s. He joined early Salafi-jihadi groups in Iraq following the US invasion in March 2003 and was detained with Al Qaeda commanders at the American Camp Bucca in 2004. He joined al-Qaeda in Iraq there and rose through the ranks until he was appointed emir—the highest leader—in 2010. Al-Qaeda in Iraq reorganized and renamed itself into Islamic State of Iraq during this time. In June 2014, the group permanently broke with al-Qaeda, renamed itself the "Islamic State", and declared itself a caliphate. Baghdadi was chosen caliph of ISIL by the Shura Council, who represented those members of the Islamic State qualified to elect a caliph.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Baghdadi's claim to be "caliph" was almost universally rejected by the Muslim community. ISIL was designated as a terrorist organisation by the United Nations and almost all sovereign states, and Baghdadi was individually considered a terrorist by the United States and many other countries. As leader of IS, Baghdadi led the Islamic State's wars against Iraq and Syria. Baghdadi directed the use of extremely controversial tactics, including the mass use of suicide bombings and the execution of prisoners of war. ISIL briefly captured substantial territory in Iraq and Syria, but lost all of that territory and almost all of its fighters during Baghdadi's tenure as caliph.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Baghdadi would become directly involved in ISIL's atrocities and human rights violations. These include the genocide of Yazidis in Iraq, extensive sexual slavery, organized rape, floggings, and systematic executions. He directed terrorist activities and massacres. He embraced brutality as part of the organization's propaganda efforts, producing videos displaying sexual slavery and executions via hacking, stoning, and burning. Baghdadi himself was a serial rapist who kept several personal sex slaves.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: On 27 October 2019, Baghdadi killed himself and two children by detonating a suicide vest during the Barisha raid, conducted by the United States following approval from President Donald Trump, in Syria's northwestern Idlib Province. After being offered Islamic funeral rites, his body was buried at sea. ISIL confirmed his death and named Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi as his replacement.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a pseudonym. He had various names and epithets, including Abu Du'a ( '), Al-Shabah (the phantom or ghost), Amir al-Mu'minin, Caliph (sometimes followed by Abu Bakr, al-Baghdadi, or Ibrahim), and Sheikh Baghdadi""'." Other aliases used by al-Badri include Dr. Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: In 2014, the "Telegraph" reported that his birthname was Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al-Badri. In 2018, Reuters reported that his real name was Ibrahim al-Samarrai.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: The word "duaa" signifies , , or prayers. In regions formerly under ISIL control, various non-Islamic honorifics that recognize his rank were used as a formal address recognizing him as a noble and a head of state that might precede or follow his name.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: The "kunya" Abū, corresponds to the English "father of". Having at some time taken the name Abu Bakr, al-Baghdadi is thought to have adopted the name of the first caliph, Abu Bakr. During the times when Muhammad might have suffered from illnesses, Abu Bakr was the replacement for leading prayer, according to the Sunni tradition of Islam.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: His surname literally means "The one from Baghdad" and denotes that he was from Baghdad city or Baghdad governorate in Iraq.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Al-Baghdadi is believed to have been born in Samarra, Iraq, on 28 July 1971 as the third of four sons in the family. Al-Badri al-Samarrai was apparently born as a member of the tribal group known as Al-Bu Badri tribe. This tribe includes a number of sub-tribes, including the Radhawiyyah, Husseiniyyah, Adnaniyyah, and Quraysh. Al-Baghdadi later claimed that he was descended from the Quraysh tribe and therefore from Muhammad, although there was no evidence to back up his claim.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: According to a short semi-authorized biography written by Abid Humam al-Athari, his grandfather, Haj Ibrahim Ali al-Badri, apparently lived until the age of 94 and witnessed the US occupation of Iraq. His father, Sheikh Awwad, was active in the religious life of the community. Awwad taught the teenaged Baghdadi and got his own start as a teacher, leading children in a neighbourhood chanting the Quran. Both his father and grandfather were said to be farmers. His mother, whose name is not known, was described as a religious loving person and was notable in the al-Badri tribe. One of Baghdadi's uncles served in Saddam Hussein's security services, and one of his brothers became an officer in the Iraqi Army. He has another brother, who probably died either during the Iran–Iraq War or the Gulf War while serving in the Iraqi military. Baghdadi was described as extremely conservative and religious even in his youth.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Official education records from Samarra High School revealed that al-Baghdadi had to retake his high school certificate in 1991 and scored 481 out of 600 possible points. A few months later, he was deemed unfit for military service by the Iraqi military due to his nearsightedness. His high-school grades were not good enough for him to study his preferred subject (law, educational science and languages) at the University of Baghdad. Instead, it is believed that he attended the Islamic University of Baghdad, now known as Iraqi University, where he studied Islamic law and, later, the Quran.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: According to a biography that circulated on extremist Internet forums in July 2013, he obtained a BA, MA, and PhD in Islamic studies from the Islamic University of Baghdad. Another report says that he earned a doctorate in education from the University of Baghdad.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Will McCants says that he "successfully" defended his Ph.D. thesis in 2007, "despite the weight of his new responsibilities" as a militant, his work consisting in editing a medieval manuscript, "Ruḥ al-murid fi sharḥ al-'iqd al-farid fi nuzum al-tajrid" by Muhammad al-Samarqandi (who died in 1378 in Baghdad), an Arabic poem on the recitation of the Qur'an (or tajwid), for which he was awarded a grade of "very good".


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: In an interview with "The Daily Telegraph", contemporaries of al-Baghdadi describes him in his youth as being shy, unimpressive, a religious scholar, and a man who eschewed violence. For more than a decade, until 2004, he lived in a room attached to a small local mosque in Tobchi, a poor neighbourhood on the western fringes of Baghdad, inhabited by both Shia and Sunni Muslims.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Ahmed al-Dabash, the leader of the Islamic Army of Iraq and a contemporary of al-Baghdadi who fought against the allied invasion in 2003, gave a description of al-Baghdadi that matched that of the Tobchi residents:


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: "They [the US and Iraqi Governments] know physically who this guy is, but his backstory is just myth", said Patrick Skinner of the Soufan Group, a security consulting firm. "He's managed this secret persona extremely well, and it's enhanced his group's prestige", said Patrick Johnston of the RAND Corporation, adding, "Young people are really attracted to that." Being mostly unrecognized, even in his own organization, Baghdadi was known to be nicknamed at some time about 2015, as "the invisible sheikh".


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Some believe that al-Baghdadi became an Islamic revolutionary during the rule of Saddam Hussein, but other reports suggest he was radicalized by joining the Muslim Brotherhood as a youth, followed by his later internment with Al Qaeda commanders at the US Camp Bucca. He may have been a mosque cleric around the time of the US-led invasion in 2003.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, al-Baghdadi helped found the militant group Jamaat Jaysh Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamaah (JJASJ), in which he served as head of this group.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Al-Baghdadi was arrested by US Forces-Iraq on 2 or 4 February 2004 near Fallujah while visiting the home of his old student friend, Nessayif Numan Nessayif, who was also on the American wanted list at the time and studied together with al-Baghdadi at the Islamic University. He was detained at the Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca detention centers under his name Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al-Badry as a "civilian internee". His detainee card gives his profession as "administrative work (secretary)". The US Department of Defense said al-Baghdadi was imprisoned at Compound 6, which was a medium security Sunni compound. On 8 December 2004, he was released as a prisoner deemed "low level" after being recommended for release by the Combined Review and Release Board.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: A number of newspapers and news channels have instead stated that al-Baghdadi was interned from 2005 to 2009. These reports originate from an interview with the former commander of Camp Bucca, Colonel Kenneth King, and are not substantiated by Department of Defense records. Al-Baghdadi was imprisoned at Camp Bucca along with other future leaders of ISIL.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Al-Baghdadi and his group Jamaat Jaysh Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamaah joined the Mujahideen Shura Council (MSC) in 2006, in which he served as a member of the MSC's sharia committee. Following the renaming of the MSC as the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) in 2006, al-Baghdadi became the general supervisor of the ISI's sharia committee and a member of the group's senior consultative council.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), also known as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), was the Iraqi division of al-Qaeda. Al-Baghdadi was announced as leader of ISI on 16 May 2010, following the death of his predecessor Abu Omar al-Baghdadi.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: As leader of ISI, al-Baghdadi was responsible for masterminding large-scale operations such as the 28 August 2011 suicide bombing at the Umm al-Qura Mosque in Baghdad, which killed prominent Sunni lawmaker Khalid al-Fahdawi. Between March and April 2011, ISI claimed 23 attacks south of Baghdad, all allegedly carried out under al-Baghdadi's command.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: From 2011, a reward of US$10 million was offered for Baghdadi by the U.S. State Department, increasing to $25 million in 2017, for information or intelligence on his whereabouts to enable capture, dead or alive.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Following the death of the founder and head of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, on 2 May 2011, in Abbottabad, Pakistan, al-Baghdadi released a statement praising bin Laden and threatening violent retaliation for his death. On 5 May 2011, al-Baghdadi claimed responsibility for an attack in Hilla, south of Baghdad, that killed 24 policemen and wounded 72 others.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: On 15 August 2011, a wave of ISI suicide attacks beginning in Mosul resulted in 70 deaths. Shortly thereafter, in retaliation for bin Laden's death, ISI pledged on its website to carry out 100 attacks across Iraq featuring various methods of attack, including raids, suicide attacks, roadside bombs and small arms attacks in all cities and rural areas across the country.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: On 22 December 2011, a series of coordinated car bombings and IED (improvised explosive device) attacks struck over a dozen neighborhoods across Baghdad, killing at least 63 people and wounding 180. The assault came just days after the US completed its troop withdrawal from Iraq. On 26 December, ISI released a statement on jihadist internet forums claiming credit for the operation, stating that the targets of the Baghdad attack were "accurately surveyed and explored" and that the "operations were distributed between targeting security headquarters, military patrols and gatherings of the filthy ones of the al-Dajjal Army (the 'Army of the Anti-Christ' in Arabic)", referring to the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: On 2 December 2012, Iraqi officials claimed that they had captured al-Baghdadi in Baghdad, following a two-month tracking operation. Officials claimed that they had also seized a list containing the names and locations of other al-Qaeda operatives. However, this claim was rejected by ISI. In an interview with Al Jazeera on 7 December 2012, Iraq's Acting Interior Minister said that the arrested man was not al-Baghdadi, but rather a sectional commander in charge of an area stretching from the northern outskirts of Baghdad to Taji.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Al-Baghdadi remained leader of the ISI until its formal expansion into Syria in 2013 when, in a statement on 8 April 2013, he announced the formation of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) – alternatively translated from Arabic as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: When announcing the formation of ISIL, al-Baghdadi stated that the Syrian civil war jihadist faction, Jabhat al-Nusra – also known as al-Nusra Front – had been an extension of the ISI in Syria and was now to be merged with ISIL. The leader of Jabhat al-Nusra, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, disputed this merging of the two groups and appealed to al-Qaeda emir Ayman al-Zawahiri, who issued a statement that ISIL should be abolished and that al-Baghdadi should confine his group's activities to Iraq. Al-Baghdadi, however, dismissed al-Zawahiri's ruling and took control of a reported 80% of Jabhat al-Nusra's foreign fighters. In January 2014, ISIL expelled Jabhat al-Nusra from the Syrian city of Raqqa, and in the same month clashes between the two in Syria's Deir ez-Zor Governorate killed hundreds of fighters and displaced tens of thousands of civilians. In February 2014, al-Qaeda disavowed any relations with ISIL.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: According to several Western sources, al-Baghdadi and ISIL have received private financing from citizens in Saudi Arabia and Qatar and enlisted fighters through recruitment drives in Saudi Arabia in particular.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: On 29 June 2014, ISIL announced the establishment of a worldwide caliphate. Al-Baghdadi was named its caliph, to be known as "Caliph Ibrahim", and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant was renamed the Islamic State (IS).


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: The declaration of a caliphate was heavily criticized by Middle Eastern governments, other jihadist groups, and Sunni Muslim theologians and historians. Qatar-based TV broadcaster and theologian Yusuf al-Qaradawi stated: "[The] declaration issued by the Islamic State is void under sharia and has dangerous consequences for the Sunnis in Iraq and for the revolt in Syria", adding that the title of caliph can "only be given by the entire Muslim nation", not by a single group.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: As a caliph, al-Baghdadi was required to hold to each dictate of the sunnah, whose precedence is set and recorded in the sahih hadiths. According to tradition, if a caliph fails to meet any of these obligations at any period, he is required by the law to abdicate his position and the community has to appoint a new caliph, theoretically selected from throughout the caliphdom as being the most religiously and spiritually pious individual among them. Due to the widespread rejection of his caliphhood, al-Baghdadi's status as caliph has been compared to that of other caliphs whose caliphship has been questioned.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: In an audio-taped message, al-Baghdadi announced that ISIL would march on generally interpreted to mean the in its quest to establish an Islamic State from the Middle East across Europe. He said that he would conquer both Rome and Spain in this endeavor and urged Muslims across the world to immigrate to the new Islamic State.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: On 8 July 2014, ISIL launched its online magazine "Dabiq". The title appeared to have been selected for its eschatological connections with the Islamic version of the "end times", or "malahim".


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: According to a report in October 2014, after suffering serious injuries, al-Baghdadi fled ISIL's capital city Raqqa due to the intense bombing campaign launched by Coalition forces, and sought refuge in the Iraqi city of Mosul, the largest city under ISIL control at the time.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: On 5 November 2014, al-Baghdadi sent a message to al-Qaeda Emir Ayman al-Zawahiri requesting him to swear allegiance to him as caliph, in return for a position in the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The source of this information was a senior Taliban intelligence officer. Al-Zawahiri did not reply, and instead reassured the Taliban of his loyalty to Mullah Omar.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: On 7 November 2014, there were unconfirmed reports of al-Baghdadi's death after an airstrike in Mosul, while other reports said that he was only wounded.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: On 20 January 2015, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that al-Baghdadi had been wounded in an airstrike in Al-Qa'im, an Iraqi border town held by ISIL at that time, and as a result withdrew to Syria.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: On 8 February 2015, after Jordan had conducted 56 airstrikes which reportedly killed 7,000 ISIL militants from 5–7 February, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was said to have fled from Raqqa to Mosul out of fear for his life. However, after a Peshmerga source informed the US-led Coalition that al-Baghdadi was in Mosul, Coalition warplanes continuously bombed the locations where ISIL leaders were known to meet for 2 hours.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: On 14 August 2015, it was reported that he allegedly claimed, as his "wife", American hostage Kayla Mueller and raped her repeatedly. Mueller was later alleged by an ISIL media account to have been killed in an airstrike by anti-ISIL forces in February 2015. However, a former sex slave has claimed that Mueller was murdered by ISIL.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Through his forename, al-Baghdadi was rumored to have been styling himself after the first caliph, Abu Bakr, who led the "Rightly Guided" or Rashidun. According to Sunni tradition, Abu Bakr replaced Muhammad as prayer leader when he was suffering from illnesses. Another feature of the original Rashidun was what some historians dub as the first Sunni–Shia discord during the Battle of Siffin. Some publishers have drawn a correlation between those ancient events and modern Salafizing and caliphizing aims under al-Baghdadi's rule.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Due to the relatively stationary nature of ISIL control, the elevation of religious clergy who engage in theocratization, and the group's scripture-themed legal system, some analysts declared al-Baghdadi a theocrat and ISIL a theocracy. Other indications of the decline of secularism were the destruction of secular institutions and its replacement with strict sharia law, and the gradual caliphization and Sunnification of regions under the group's control. In July 2015, al-Baghdadi was described by a reporter as exhibiting a kinder and gentler side after he banned videos showing slaughter and execution.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: A video, made during the first Friday prayer service of Ramadan, shows al-Baghdadi speaking on a pulpit in the Arabic language to a congregation at the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul, northern Iraq. In the video, al-Baghdadi declares himself caliph of the Islamic State and calls on Muslims worldwide to support him. A representative of the Iraqi government denied that the video was of al-Baghdadi, calling it a "farce." However, both the BBC and the Associated Press quoted unnamed Iraqi officials as saying that the man in the video was believed to be al-Baghdadi.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: ISIL released an audio-taped message, claiming it to be in the voice of al-Baghdadi. In the 17-minute recording, released via social media, al-Baghdadi says that ISIL fighters would never cease fighting "even if only one soldier remains." Al-Baghdadi urges supporters of the Islamic State to "erupt volcanoes of jihad" across the world. He calls for attacks to be mounted in Saudi Arabia, describing Saudi leaders as "the head of the snake", and also says that the US-led military campaign in Syria and Iraq was failing. He declares that ISIL would keep marching forward and would "break the borders" of Jordan and Lebanon as well as "free Palestine".


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: ISIL released an audio message which it claimed was from al-Baghdadi. In the recording, al-Baghdadi urges Muslims to immigrate to the Islamic State and join the fight in Iraq and Syria. He also condemns the Saudi involvement in Yemen, and claims that the conflict will lead to the end of the Saudi royal family's rule. He further claims that Islam was never a religion of peace but instead is "the religion of fighting".


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: An audio message that was approximately 23 minutes long was released. Al-Baghdadi warns Western nations to not interfere further in their matters and threatens the future establishment of ISIL in Israel. He also celebrates the defeat of "crusaders" and "Jews" in Iraq and Afghanistan.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: An audio message was released. In it, al-Baghdadi discusses the need for ISIL to defend their forces within Mosul and encourages ISIL forces to persecute Shia Muslims and the Alawites. He also states plans to begin fighting in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and further away, and argues in favour of using martyrdom in Libya to spread support.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: A 46-minute audio recording was released through the ISIL-owned media organization Al Furqan in which al-Baghdadi accuses the United States of wilting in the face of Russia and lacking "the will to fight". Al-Baghdadi refers to recent events including North Korean threats against Japan and the United States and the recapture of Mosul by US backed Iraqi forces over two months earlier, likely to dispel rumours of his death.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Throughout, al-Baghdadi calls for further attacks in the West and, more specifically, for attacks on Western media, saying: "Oh soldiers of Islam in every location, increase blow after blow, and make the media centers of the infidels, from where they wage their intellectual wars, among the targets."


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: An audio message is released, almost a year after his previous communication. Al-Baghdadi calls on his followers to "persevere" despite heavy losses in Iraq and Syria and calls for more attacks around the world. He also comments on recent events, suggesting that the audio message was recorded recently. Many experts believed that it was him as the voice resembled that heard in his other audio messages.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: On 29 April 2019, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was shown in an 18-minute long video released by an Islamic State media group, his first public appearance in almost five years. In the video, al-Baghdadi is shown with an assault rifle mentioning recent events such as the loss of the last ISIL territory in Baghuz Fawqani, the Sri Lanka Easter bombings and the overthrow of Sudanese and Algerian presidents Omar al-Bashir and Abdelaziz Bouteflika, suggesting that the video was filmed around a week before being released.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: On 16 September 2019 al-Baghdadi released an audio message calling for his followers to free detained ISIS members and their families held in camps in Iraq and Syria. It was recorded and distributed by Al Furqan Establishment for Media Production.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was designated by the United States Department of State as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. The US Department of State's Rewards for Justice Program identified Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as a senior leader of the terrorist organization Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and as having been "responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians in the Middle East, including the brutal murder of numerous civilian hostages from Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States." Authorities within the United States had also accused al-Baghdadi of kidnapping, enslaving, and repeatedly raping an American, Kayla Mueller, who ISIL later alleged was killed in a Jordanian airstrike but is believed to have been executed by ISIL.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Al-Baghdadi was the top target in the war against ISIL. US Intelligence believed that he was based in Raqqa and that he kept a low profile, hiding among the civilian population. Until summer 2017, ISIL was believed to be headquartered in a series of buildings in Raqqa, but the proximity of civilians made targeting the headquarters off-limits under US rules of engagement. Photos of a possible public appearance in a Fallujah mosque surfaced in February 2016.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Haider al-Abadi was reported (Ensor, 7 February 2017) to have stated he knew of the location of al-Baghdadi. Colonel John Dorrian, of the Combined Joint Task Force, stated he was aware of al-Baghdadi having chosen to sleep in a suicide vest, in the event he should find himself facing capture.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: In 2018, Iraqi intelligence officials and a number of experts believed that al-Baghdadi was hiding in ISIL's then-"de facto" capital of Hajin, in ISIL's Middle Euphrates Valley Pocket in Syria. Even though no direct evidence has yet been found that al-Baghdadi himself was present in the city, experts noted that the remaining ISIL leadership was concentrated in Hajin, and that ISIL was persistently launching a strenuous defense. Hajin was captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces on 14 December 2018, but al-Baghdadi's whereabouts were still unknown.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: On 1 February 2019, the chief of the Intelligence Office of Iraq's Interior Ministry, Abu Ali Al-Basri, stated that al-Baghdadi never stayed in one place at a time as he continued to sneak back-and-forth across the Iraq-Syria border. "We have information that he moved from Syria and entered Iraq through Anbar and then Salaheddine", Al-Basri said. Additionally, Fadhel Abu Rageef, a Baghdad-based political and security analyst, told Fox News that Baghdadi maneuvered without convoys or any attention-drawing security figures, and was instead only flanked by a couple of trusted loyalists – and neither he nor his associates had mobile phones or detectable devices. "We think Baghdadi is in the Syrian desert at large, wearing modern clothes, no mobiles, a simple car, and just a driver. Anyone around him is dressed in modern clothes", Rageef said.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: According to an Associated Press interview with a Yazidi slave of his, Baghdadi had tried to escape to Idlib in late 2017 along with a wife and his security guards, but returned midway due to fear of an attempt on his life. According to her, he later first stayed at Hajin for a week, before travelling to Dashisha where she stayed for four months at the home of his father-in-law Abu Abdullah al-Zubaie. She stated that he would only move around at night and in disguise, along with five of his guards, stating she last met him in the spring of 2018 before a new master took her away.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Baghdadi's brother-in-law Mohamad Ali Sajit, during an interview with Al Arabiya, described Baghdadi during the last months of his life as having been "a nervous wreck" who would often suspect ISIL governors of betrayal. Sajit stated that he met Baghdadi for the first time in Hajin in late 2017, and that the final time was in the desert located along the Iraq-Syria border. According to Sajit, Baghdadi only traveled with five to seven confidantes, which included Abul-Hasan al-Muhajir, his security head Abu Sabah, al-Zubaie who was killed in March 2019, and Tayseer alias Abu al-Hakim, ISIL's former wali of Iraq. Sajit further stated that while in hiding, Baghdadi always kept a suicide vest with him, ordered others to do the same, sometimes disguised himself as a shepherd, and that only his confidante al-Muhajir used a mobile phone. Sajit also related how on one occasion Baghdadi had to be hidden in a pit to save him from a possible raid along the Iraq-Syrian border, that Baghdadi's diabetes had worsened in the end due to his constantly trying to evade capture, and that he didn't fast during Ramadan, nor let his associates do so.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: According to media reports, al-Baghdadi was wounded on 18 March 2015 during a coalition airstrike on the al-Baaj District, in the Nineveh Governorate, near the Syrian border. His wounds were apparently so serious that the top ISIL leaders had a meeting to discuss who would replace him if he died. According to reports, by 22 April al-Baghdadi had not yet recovered enough from his injuries to resume daily control of ISIL. The US Department of Defense said that al-Baghdadi had not been the target of the airstrikes, and "we have no reason to believe it was Baghdadi." On 22 April 2015, Iraqi government sources reported that Abu Ala al-Afri, the self-proclaimed caliph's deputy and a former Iraqi physics teacher, had been installed as the stand-in leader while Baghdadi recuperated from his injuries.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: On 27 October 2019, US Joint Special Operations Command's (JSOC) 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (SFOD-D) (commonly known as Delta Force), along with soldiers from the 75th Ranger Regiment and 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) conducted a raid through air space controlled by Russia and Turkey into the rebel-held Idlib province of Syria on the border with Turkey to capture al-Baghdadi. US President Donald Trump and his officials stated that while being hunted by American military canines and after being cornered in a tunnel, al-Baghdadi died by self-detonating a suicide vest, killing three young children, reportedly his own, as well. The commander of US Central Command, Gen. Frank McKenzie, later revised the number of children killed to two. The blast also injured 2 Delta operators and 1 military working dog (Conan) but sustained no life-threatening injuries. The raid was launched based on a CIA Special Activities Division's intelligence effort that located the leader of ISIS. This operation was conducted during the withdrawal of US forces from northeast Syria.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: President Trump announced on 27 October 2019 that American forces used helicopters, jets and drones through airspace controlled by Russia and Turkey. He said that "Russia treated us great ... Iraq was excellent. We really had great cooperation" and Turkey had been informed of the operation prior to its commencement. He also thanked Russia, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and the Syrian Kurdish forces for their support. According to multiple sources, the video footage presented to President Trump in the situation room did not contain audio.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: The Turkish Defence Ministry confirmed on 27 October that Turkish and US military authorities exchanged and coordinated information ahead of an attack in Syria's Idlib. Fahrettin Altun, a senior aide to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, also stated, among other things, that "Turkey was proud to help the United States, our NATO ally, bring a notorious terrorist to justice" and that Turkey "will continue to work closely with the United States and others to combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations." Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to say if the United States had told Russia about the raid in advance but said that its result if confirmed, represented a serious contribution by the United States to combat terrorism. Russia previously said they may have killed him in an airstrike on 4 apartment buildings in Raqqa city on 28 May 2017 but were at that time still seeking confirmation. DNA profiling was done immediately, confirming his identity.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark A. Milley, said during a Pentagon briefing that "the disposal of his [al-Baghdadi's] remains has been done and is complete and was handled appropriately", initially adding that Washington had no plans to release images of his death, but later revealed footage of the raid during a briefing on 30 October. Baghdadi was buried at sea and afforded Islamic rites, according to three anonymous U.S. officials and General Frank McKenzie.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: ISIL's propaganda arm confirmed his death via Telegram on 31 October and announced Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi as the new leader of the group.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: In September 2019, a statement attributed to ISIL's propaganda arm, the Amaq news agency, claimed that Abdullah Qardash was named as al-Baghdadi's successor. Analysts dismissed this statement as a fabrication, and relatives were reported as saying that Qardash died in 2017. Rita Katz, a terrorism analyst and the co-founder of SITE Intelligence, noted that the alleged statement used a different font when compared to other statements and it was never distributed on Amaq or ISIL channels. Two other individuals, the Saudi Abu Saleh al-Juzrawi and the Tunisian Abu Othman al-Tunsi, were also named as possible candidates to succeed al-Baghdadi, who were close to Baghdadi and are believed to have been present in his last video appearance.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: On 29 October 2019, Trump stated on social media that al-Baghdadi's "number one replacement" had been killed by American forces, adding: "Most likely would have taken the top spot - Now he is also Dead!" While Trump did not specify a name, a U.S. official later confirmed that Trump was referring to ISIL spokesman and senior leader Abul-Hasan al-Muhajir, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Syria two days earlier. On 31 October, an IS outlet on Telegram named Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi as Baghdadi's successor.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Reuters, quoting tribal sources in Iraq, reported Baghdadi had three wives, two Iraqis and one Syrian. The Iraqi Interior Ministry said that al-Baghdadi had two wives, Asma Fawzi Mohammed al-Dulaimi (sometimes referred to as "Al-Qubaysi" or "al-Kubaysi") and Israa Rajab Mahal Al-Qaisi. However, in 2016 Fox News reported, based on local media, that Saja al-Dulaimi was al-Baghdadi's most powerful wife.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: On 27 October 2019, when it was said al-Baghdadi died, it was reported that two of Baghdadi's wives were also killed, wearing suicide vests that had not detonated. This was confirmed by United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: In November 2019, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that they had captured Asma. A Turkish official stated that she had already been captured on 2 June 2018 in the province of Hatay, along with 10 others.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: In April 2015, multiple media reports emerged claiming that Baghdadi had married a German teenager on 31 March 2015. On 28 February 2016, Iraqi media reported that she had left ISIL and had fled Iraq along with two other women. Her name was identified as Diane Kruger.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: According to reports in the Iraqi media, Diane Kruger was married to him during October 2015 somewhere within Nineveh Governorate.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: According to several sources, Sujidah (sometimes referred to as "Saja") al-Dulaimi was the wife of al-Baghdadi. It was reported the couple had allegedly met and fallen in love online. Sujidah al-Dulaimi was arrested in Syria in late 2013 or early 2014, and was released from a Syrian jail in March 2014 as part of a prisoner swap involving 150 women, in exchange for 13 nuns taken captive by al-Qaeda-linked militants. Also released in March were her two sons and her younger brother. The Iraqi Interior Ministry has said, "There is no wife named Saja al-Dulaimi."


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Al-Dulaimi's family allegedly all adhere to ISIL's ideology. Her father, Ibrahim Dulaimi, an ISIL emir in Syria, was reportedly killed in September 2013 during an operation against the Syrian Army in Deir Attiyeh. Her sister, Duaa, was allegedly behind a suicide attack that targeted a Kurdish gathering in Erbil. The Iraq Interior Ministry has said that her brother is facing execution in Iraq for a series of bombings in southern Iraq. The Iraq government, however, said that al-Dulaimi is the daughter of an active member of al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, al-Nusra Front.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: In late November 2014, al-Dulaimi was arrested and held for questioning by Lebanese authorities, along with two sons and a young daughter. They were traveling on false documents. The children were held in a care center while al-Dulaimi was interrogated.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: The capture was a joint intelligence operation by Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, with the US assisting the last. Al-Dulaimi's potential intelligence value is unknown. An unnamed intelligence source told "The New York Times" that during the Iraq war, when the Americans captured a wife of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, "We got little out of her, and when we sent her back, Zarqawi killed her." , al-Baghdadi's family members were seen by the Lebanese authorities as potential bargaining chips in prisoner exchanges.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: In the clearest explanation yet of al-Dulaimi's connection to al-Baghdadi, Lebanese Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk told Lebanon's MTV channel that "Dulaimi is not Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's wife currently. She has been married three times: first to a man from the former Iraqi regime, with whom she had two sons." Other sources identify her first husband as Fallah Ismail Jassem, a member of the Rashideen Army, who was killed in a battle with the Iraqi Army in 2010. Machnouk continued, "Six years ago she married Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi for three months, and she had a daughter with him. Now, she is married to a Palestinian and she is pregnant with his child." The Minister added, "We conducted DNA tests on her and the daughter, which showed she was the mother of the girl, and that the girl is [Baghdadi's] daughter, based on DNA from Baghdadi from Iraq."


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Al-Monitor reported a Lebanese security source as saying that al-Dulaimi had been under scrutiny since early 2014. He said that Jabhat al-Nusra "had insisted back in March on including her in the swap that ended the kidnapping of the Maaloula nuns. The negotiators said on their behalf that she was very important, and they were ready to cancel the whole deal for her sake." He added, "It was later revealed by Abu Malik al-Talli, one of al-Nusra's leaders, that she was Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's wife."


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: On 9 December 2014, al-Dulaimi and her current Palestinian husband, Kamal Khalaf, were formally arrested after the Lebanese Military Court issued warrants and filed charges for belonging to a terrorist group, holding contacts with terrorist organizations, and planning to carry out terrorist acts. In December 2015, the Lebanese government exchanged al-Dulaimi and her daughter for Lebanese soldiers being held by al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front in a prisoner swap deal. Her brother is reported to be a Nusra member according to a Lebanese security source.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Dulaimi in an interview conducted by "Expressen" in 2016, described al-Baghdadi as a family man, but said he rarely talked with her. She stated that she had a co-wife while they were married. Dulaimi claimed that she ran away after becoming pregnant because she was not happy with him, stating the last time they talked was in 2009 and the two had divorced. She now resides in Lebanon.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: On 4 November 2019, Turkey announced that they captured al-Baghdadi's older sister, Rasmiya Awad, near the town of Azaz. Her identity however, has not been verified as of yet.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Baghdadi's brother Jumah (also referred to as "Jomaa") acted as a courier for him according to anonymous Iraqi intelligence agents in an interview with "The National", delivering messages to and fro between ISIL militants in Turkey and his brother. A Western intelligence agent stated that they hadn't apprehended him yet deliberately, so he could lead them to Baghdadi. According to Iraqi officials in interview with "The Guardian", the wives of Jumah and another brother Ahmad have been smuggled out to Turkey through Idlib province.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: According to an investigation by news outlet Al-Monitor based on an interview with Abu Ahmad, who claimed to have known al-Baghdadi since the 1990s, al-Baghdadi's brothers are named Shamsi, Jumah, and Ahmad. Jumah is reported to be the closest to him and is also said to have been his bodyguard. Shamsi and al-Baghdadi were reported to have a dispute over Baghdadi's decision to join the insurgency in Iraq. The former is reported to be under the custody of Iraqi authorities and suffering from severe health issues. Personal information on Ahmad is scarce other than his money problems.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: According to a reporter for "The Guardian", al-Baghdadi married in Iraq around the year 2000 after finishing his doctorate. The son of this marriage was 11 years old in 2014.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: A girl named Hagar born in 2008, who was detained in Lebanon in 2014 with her mother Saja al-Dulaimi, is allegedly al-Baghdadi's daughter.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: Al-Baghdadi's son Hudhayfah al-Badri was killed in action in 2018 during the Syrian civil war while taking part in an Inghimasi-style attack on the Syrian Army and Russian forces in Homs Governorate.


title: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

text: During the Barisha raid, three of Baghdadi's children died with him in a dead-end tunnel after he detonated his vest, according to President Donald Trump. General Frank McKenzie however later said only two children had died.


title: Saturn V

text: Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated, with three stages, and powered with liquid fuel. It was flown from 1967 to 1973. It was used for nine crewed flights to the Moon, and to launch Skylab, the first American space station.


title: Saturn V

text: The largest production model of the Saturn family of rockets, the Saturn V was designed under the direction of Wernher von Braun at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama; the lead contractors were Boeing, North American Aviation, Douglas Aircraft Company, and IBM. A total of 15 flight-capable vehicles were built, plus three for ground testing. Thirteen were launched from Kennedy Space Center with no loss of crew or payload. A total of 24 astronauts were launched to the Moon from Apollo 8 (December 1968) to Apollo 17 (December 1972).


title: Saturn V

text: In September 1945, the U.S. government brought the German rocket technologist Wernher von Braun and over 1,500 German rocket engineers and technicians to the United States in Operation Paperclip, a program authorized by President Truman. Von Braun, who had helped create the V-2 rocket, was assigned to the Army's rocket design division. Between 1945 and 1958, his work was restricted to conveying the ideas and methods behind the V-2 to American engineers, though he wrote books and articles in popular magazines.


title: Saturn V

text: This approach changed in 1957, when the Soviets launched Sputnik 1 atop an R-7 ICBM, which could carry a thermonuclear warhead to the U.S. The Army and government began taking serious steps towards sending Americans into space. They turned to von Braun's team, who had created and experimented with the Jupiter series of rockets. The Juno I rocket launched the first American satellite in January 1958. Von Braun considered the Jupiter series to be a prototype and referred to it as "an infant Saturn".


title: Saturn V

text: Between 1960 and 1962, the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) designed a series of Saturn rockets that could be deployed for various Earth orbit or lunar missions.