Angela Merkel Crowned Time's Person of the Year; ISIS Leader Named Runner Up

NEW YORK (AP) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been named Time's Person of the Year, praised by the magazine for her leadership on everything from Syrian refugees to the Greek debt crisis.

"Leaders are tested only when people don't want to follow," Time editor Nancy Gibbs said in a statement issued Wednesday. "For asking more of her country than most politicians would dare, for standing firm against tyranny as well as expedience and for providing steadfast moral leadership in a world where it is in short supply, Angela Merkel is TIME's Person of the Year."

ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi was named the runner-up for the honor.

"In 2015, al-Baghdadi, 44, transformed the breakaway al-Qaeda group from a battlefield force operating in the chaos of Syria and Iraq into a transnational terrorist franchise killing civilians in more than a dozen countries around the world," writes Time's Massimo Calabresi.

The six other finalists include Donald Trump, the Black Lives Matter protest movement, Uber's CEO, Travis Kalanick, and Caitlyn Jenner.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.