Islamic State poses a threat even after elimination of its chief
Washington, Oct. 28: Eliminating the Islamic State’s elusive leader gives President Donald Trump a new argument for leaving Syria, but the US military campaign against the extremists is far from finished.
The killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi by US forces leaves the Islamic State without an obvious leader, a major setback for an organisation that in March was forced by American troops and Kurdish forces out of the last portion of its selfdeclared “caliphate,” which once spanned a swath of Iraq and Syria.
But the militant group, which arose from the remnants of al-Qaeda in Iraq after that group’s defeat by US-led forces in 2008, has ambitions to regenerate yet again. And it remains a dangerous threat in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond.
“The bottom line is: This puts the enemy on its heels, but the ideology and this sounds so cliched — it is not dead,” said Chris Costa, a former senior director for counterterrorism for the National Security Council in the Trump administration.
Key to the Islamic States is its “kill where you are” ethos, encouraging a farflung network of followers, including those in the United States, to commit violence however and wherever they can. That jihadist message is likely to live on, even with the death of al-Baghdadi.
That means US forces, perhaps in reduced numbers, will continue hunting and attacking key Islamic State targets, even as Trump says he’s committed to a 2016 campaign pledge to bring them home and end “endless wars” started under his predecessors.
AIDE WAS KEY TO OPS
In their long hunt for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Iraqi intelligence teams secured a break in February 2018 after one of the Islamic State leader’s top aides gave them information on how he escaped capture for so many years, said two Iraqi security officials. Baghdadi would sometimes hold strategy talks with his commanders in moving mini-buses packed with vegetables in order to avoid detection, Ismael al-Ethawi told officials after he was arrested by Turkish authorities and handed to the Iraqis.
“Ethawi gave valuable information which helped the Iraqi multi-security agencies team complete the missing pieces of the puzzle of Baghdadi’s movements and places he used to hide,” one of the
Iraqi security officials said.
“Ethawi gave us details on five men, including him, whom were meeting Baghdadi inside Syria and the different locations they used,” he said.
US President Donald Trump said that Baghdadi died “whimpering and crying” in a raid by US special forces. Baghdadi died alongside three of his children when he detonated an explosives-laden vest after fleeing into a deadend tunnel during the attack.