The pinnacle of Islamic State, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi, died as he lived most of his life: off the grid within the jihadist underworld.
Little is thought in regards to the ISIS chief, whose actual identify is Amir Muhammad Mentioned Abdel-Rahman al-Mawla, or different members of the group’s senior command. However his demise in a raid by U.S. commandos in Syria on Thursday was a major blow to the phobia group and a victory for U.S. counterterrorism efforts.
Whereas he was nowhere close to as distinguished as his predecessor, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who died in the same U.S. operation in 2019, “Mr. Qurayshi nonetheless instructions a whole lot of respect inside jihadi circles and is thought to be extremely smart and capable of assume strategically,” stated Colin P. Clarke, a counterterrorism analyst on the Soufan Group, a safety consulting agency based mostly in New York.
Mr. Clarke stated that Mr. al-Qurayshi had stored a low profile, which helped him elude an American-led manhunt but additionally might have hampered his means to develop the Islamic State’s world community and model. In March 2019, ISIS misplaced the final piece of territory from its so-called caliphate in elements of Syria and Iraq.
“The trade-off has been, he’s a ghost, and never precisely lively to encourage jihadist recruits,” Mr. Clarke stated.
“The subsequent ISIS chief might be somebody comparatively unknown, which is able to current the U.S. and its allies with a problem when it comes to intelligence assortment and mapping his community. But it surely’s additionally a problem for ISIS, notably if the subsequent chief is just not somebody with a repute on par with earlier jihadist leaders.”
Mr. al-Qurayshi, who was 45 and born in Iraq, was named the pinnacle of ISIS after Mr. al-Baghdadi died in October 2019 in comparable circumstances: detonating a suicide vest as U.S. forces raided his hide-out in Syria’s Idlib Province. As soon as he took up that mantle, america put a bounty of as much as $10 million on his head.
The U.S. authorities stated he “helped drive and justify the kidnapping, slaughter, and trafficking of the Yazidi non secular minority in northwest Iraq and in addition led a few of the group’s world terrorist operations.”
He was captured by U.S. forces in Iraq in early 2008. The date of his launch is just not recognized. Whereas in American custody, he appeared cooperative in interrogations and even offered details about different ISIS operatives, in line with interrogation reviews that had been later made public.
A day after his seize, the U.S. army’s Central Command stated that operations in Mosul, Iraq, had resulted within the seize of “a wished particular person believed to be the deputy Al Qaeda in Iraq chief for the community working within the metropolis.” It stated the person had “beforehand served as a decide of an unlawful courtroom system concerned in ordering and approving abductions and executions.”
Earlier, Mr. al-Qurayshi had served briefly within the Iraqi army earlier than the autumn of Saddam Hussein and accomplished a Grasp’s diploma in Islamic Research on the College of Mosul in January 2007. He informed interrogators he joined the Islamic State in Iraq quickly after that.