(CNN) -- The face of a balding, middle-aged man stares unsmilingly into the camera. He is dressed in a suit and tie and could pass for a mid-level bureaucrat.
But the photograph is that of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, who has transformed a few terror cells harried to the verge of extinction into the most dangerous militant group in the world.
The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has thrived and mutated in the security vacuum that followed the departure of the last U.S. forces from Iraq and the civil war in Syria.
Its aim is to create an Islamic state across Sunni areas of Iraq and in Syria. With the seizure of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city and advances on others, that aim appears within reach.
ISIS controls hundreds of square miles where state authority has evaporated. It ignores international borders and has a presence all the way from Syria's Mediterranean coast to south of Baghdad.
What are its origins?
In 2006, al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) - under the ruthless leadership of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- terrorized Sunni parts of Iraq as it tried to ignite a sectarian war against the majority Shia community.
It came close to succeeding, especially after the bombing of the al Askari mosque, an important Shia shrine in Samarra, which sparked retaliatory attacks.
But the killing of Zarqawi by American forces, the vicious treatment of civilians by AQI and the emergence of the Sahwa (Awakening) Fronts under Sunni tribal leaders nearly destroyed the group.
Nearly, but not quite.
When U.S. forces left Iraq, they took much of their intelligence-gathering expertise with them.
Iraqi officials began to speak of a "third generation" of al Qaeda in Iraq.
Two years ago, a former spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, warned that "if the Iraqi security forces are not able to put pressure on them, they could regenerate."
The capability of those forces was fatally compromised by a lack of professional soldiers, the division of military units along sectarian lines and a lack of the equipment needed for fighting an insurgency, such as attack helicopters and reconnaissance capabilities.
The new al Qaeda was rebranded in 2006 as the "Islamic State in Iraq (ISI)." It would add "and Syria" to its name later.
The group exploited a growing perception among many Sunnis that they were being persecuted by the government led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, starved of resources and excluded from a share of power.
The arrest of senior Sunni political figures and heavy-handed suppression of Sunni dissent was the best recruiting sergeant ISI could have.
Who is its master of terror?
Abu Bakr al Baghdadi graduated to the top job in 2010 -- at the age of 39 -- after Abu Omar al Baghdadi was killed in a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation.
At the time, al Qaeda in Iraq, which had been rebranded as the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) in 2006, was in a pitiful state. But with U.S. forces and intelligence on the way out, he set out about reviving the group.
Very little is known about al Baghdadi, but a biography posted on jihadist websites last year said he held a PhD. in Islamic Studies from a university in the capital.
He formed his own militant group in the Samarra and Diyala areas, where his family was from, before joining al Qaeda in Iraq.
Al Baghdadi even served fours years in a U.S. prison camp for insurgents -- at Bucca in southern Iraq -- a time in which he almost certainly developed a network of contacts as well as honed his ideology.
He was released in 2009, and went to work.
Where does the group's money come from?
In the beginning, Al Baghdadi focused on secrecy, with loosely connected cells making it more difficult to hunt down the leadership, and on money.
Extortion, such as demanding money from truck drivers and threatening to blow up businesses, were one revenue stream; robbing banks and gold shops were another.
It seemed the group had become little more than gangsters, but the income would help finance a growing stream of suicide attacks and assassinations that would poison the political atmosphere.
It would also aid the recruitment of Sunni tribal fighters and finance spectacular prison raids that liberated hundreds of fighters as well as attacks on police patrols and the assassination of officials.
Now, Al Baghdadi has a new strategy of generating resources: large-scale attacks on several axes, aimed at capturing and holding territory.
Ayham Kamel of the Eurasia Group, a US based consultancy, says that in the latest iteration of this strategy, ISIS will "use cash reserves from Mosul's banks, military equipment from seized military and police bases and the release of 2,500 fighters from local jails to bolster its military and financial capability."
What's been its key to survival?
Al Baghdadi avoided Zarqawi's mistakes. ISIS avoided alienating powerful tribal figures.
When it captured Fallujah, west of Baghdad, in January, it worked with local tribal leaders rather than raise its blag flag over the city.
One of the group's ideologues, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, even admitted: "As for our mistakes, we do not deny them. Rather, we will continue to make mistakes as long as we are humans. God forbid that we commit mistakes deliberately."
What is it trying to accomplish?
It wants to establish an Islamic caliphate, or state, stretching across the region.
ISIS has begun imposing Sharia law in the towns it controls. Boys and girls must be separated at school; women must wear the niqab or full veil in public. Sharia courts dispense often brutal justice, music is banned, and the fast is enforced during Ramadan.
How is it drawing support?
ISIS is -- in essence -- trying to capture and channel the resentment of the Sunni street. And in both Syria and Iraq, it is trying to win favor through dawa -- organizing social welfare programs and even recreational activities for children, distributing food and fuel to the needy, setting up clinics.
Again, having the money matters. The price it demands is enforcement of the strict Sharia code.
How does Syria fit into the picture?
A senior U.S. counter-terrorism official told CNN this week that ISIS looks at Syria and Iraq as "one interchangeable battlefield and its ability to shift resources and personnel across the border has measurably strengthened its position in both theaters."
The explosion of violence in Syria was a gift to al Baghdadi.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad lost control over large parts of the north and the long border with Iraq.
ISI could build a refuge, a rear base, where it could recruit foreign fighters, organize and escape from any Iraqi army operations.
Al Baghdadi may have sent operatives across the border as early as the autumn of 2011, and the group later changed its name -- adding 'al Sham' (Syria.)
It moved swiftly to take control of the Syrian province of Raqqah, aided by the Assad regime's focus on Homs and Aleppo.
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