IS will bounce back, warn terror experts

Paris – The death of Islamic State (IS) group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a new blow to the extremist group that once controlled swathes of Iraq and Syria but in no way marks an end to the threat posed by the jihadists.

Analysts said IS and the extremist jihadist movement have, over the last one and a half decades, repeatedly shown resilience after the death of key leaders and their militants, battle-hardened by years of fighting, remain in place around the world.

After an initial adjustment period of a few months, IS could even use it as a rallying call for launching new attacks.

President Donald Trump said the jihadist chief died by setting off a suicide vest during a raid by US special forces in northwestern Syria.

Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor in Middle East studies at Sciences-Po in Paris, said his death represented a huge setback for IS, which at the height of its success in 2014 proclaimed a new “caliphate” across parts of Iraq and Syria.

“But it is not certain that such a symbolic loss will fundamentally affect the operational direction of [IS], which has long been in the hands of seasoned professionals,” he said. “In this respect, his demise could in the long run have even less impact than the killing of Osama bin Laden did on Al-Qaeda.”

Bin Laden, who masterminded the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the US, was killed in an American raid in Pakistan in May 2011. But his death did not stop Al-Qaeda affi liates staging attacks and taking part in confl icts across the world, or the development of IS itself into a global extremist network.

“The most likely outcome is that the death of Baghdadi leads to a moment of silence and a pause in terror attacks,” said Hisham al-Hashimi, a Baghdad-based specialist on extremist movements.

This was the case after the killing in 2010 of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the former head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, from which IS emerged, he said. The Al-Qaeda group needed some four months to “reactivate its operations”.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi built up the IS group from 2003, while he was jailed in the US-run Iraqi prison of Camp Bucca. There, he met several former army and security officials from the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein and they would form the initial core of the group.

Baghdadi made his only confirmed public appearance in July 2014 at the Great Mosque of alNuri in the captured Iraqi city of Mosul, urging Muslims around the world to pledge allegiance to the caliphate.

He then disappeared from sight, only resurfacing in a video in April. Wearing a wiry grey and red beard and with an assault rifle at his side, he encouraged followers to “take revenge” after the group’s territorial defeat. – AFP