You know that Singporean high school maths question that has been doing the rounds for a few days, baffling the fuck out of everybody and their mum on the internet? This is nothing like that.
Overnight on the ABC’s 7:30 program, Defence Minister Kevin Andrews found himself in an embarrassing position, when he either couldn’t or wouldn’t name the leader of the Islamic State.
Host Leigh Sales asked him repeatedly, but an answer was not forthcoming from Andrews, as he cited, variously, the “complex and shifting” nature of IS leadership, as well as that old chestnut, operational matters.
While IS is definitely a complex and shifting beast, Iraqi Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is broadly acknowledged as its leader, to the point where the US State Department have had a US $10 million bounty on his head since 2011.
Sales asked four times, at one point just saying “who is the top leader and what sort of focus is there on his capture?”, and eventually, she answered the question herself.
Observe:
