Nato chief calls on members to continue fight against ISIS
Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said the fight against ISIS was not over despite the death of leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.
Speaking to Germany’s Bild newspaper, the Nato Secretary General described Al Baghdadi’s death during a raid by US special forces as a milestone but also warned against complacency.
Mr Stoltenberg said the international coalition against ISIS, which Nato was a part of, had to continue to fight to ensure the group did not return.
“ISIS doesn’t have any territory any more, but it still lives. ISIS maintains sleeper cells, secret networks and is working to come back. Our mission is not yet entirely fulfilled,” Mr Stoltenberg said.
At the height of its power, ISIS held territory equivalent to the size of the UK and exercised its reign over about eight million people.
Under Al Baghdadi’s leadership, the group had affiliates as far afield as South East Asia and West Africa.
The extremists used its territory in the Levant as a base of operations to carry out acts of violence against the West.
The group, which beheaded journalists and carried out a genocide of the Yazidis in northern Iraq, spread its message across the globe using online propaganda.
Last month, US special forces launched a raid on Al Baghdadi’s compound in Barisha, a village in north-west Syria less than 20 kilometres from the border with Turkey.
The Iraqi government spent more than a year tracking the group’s leader and when the
Iraqi National Intelligence Service found Al Baghdadi’s hideout, it passed the information to the US.
US Army Delta Forces, with the support of the CIA, Iraq and the Syrian Kurds, were taken to the compound by Chinook helicopters that left an airbase in western Iraq in the dead of night.
The US forces hoped to catch the ISIS leader alive but Al Baghdadi fled to an underground tunnel and detonated an explosive device, killing eight people, including two of wives.
US President Donald Trump sought to use Al Baghdadi’s death to paper over the deep fissures in Nato caused by his decision to pull US forces out of northern Syria last month.
The US’s Nato allies said that a Turkish offensive carried out in the area could offer ISIS an opportunity to regain ground in the region.
On Thursday, ISIS named Abu Ibrahim Al Hashimi Al Qurayshi as Al Baghdadi’s successor.
As it announced its new leader, ISIS also vowed to avenge Al Baghdadi’s death and usher in a new era of terrorism.