Inside hunt to finally wipe out ISIS’ cowering jihadi network once and for all after leader killed in US raid
ISIS will be desperately searching for a new leader from their dwindling ranks after the group's cowardly chief blew himself up during a raid by US special forces.
Terrorism analyst Kyle Orton told The Sun Online the group's new boss is likely the be a veteran religious scholar and probably a relative unknown.
ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi had taken over after the death of the self-proclaimed caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, 2019.
Both of the terrorist ISIS leaders died in similar circumstances - detonating bombs killing themselves and their families as the US commandos bared down upon them.
Western intelligence and security forces in the Middle East have been mopping up the group's failing leadership since the fall of the so-called caliphate.
With many of the group's most high profile figures now dead or prison, the known shortlist is running thin.
Names such as Abdullah al-Ani, who is highly respected by the leadership of al-Qaeda, and Abu Ubayda Abd al-Hakim al-Iraqi, who previously headed up ISIS's international operation, remain at large.
And dead leader al-Qurashi's personal spokesman Abu Hamza al-Quarashi who has called for the "slaughter of Jews" and urged foreign fighter to return to the Middle East is still on the run.
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Al-Baghdadi's spokesman was once described as his natural successor before he was killed - so Abu Hamza could do the same for al-Qurashi.
The extremist has called for the murder of people in their homes and called Covid a "divine punishment" against "crusaders".
But with bounties of up to $10million on their heads, many of ISIS's senior public figures have been terminated or captured in operations across Iraq and Syria.
With this in mind, Mr Orton - who tracks ISIS activity and its leadership - believes the new leader will likely step up from the shadows.
He told The Sun Online: "It would be folly at this stage to try to predict who will be IS’s next leader; the group has a cadre of people we have not seen, and in the current circumstances it makes a lot of sense for it to be one of these people that the group selects.
"If one is looking for characteristics that IS will select based upon, we have more of an idea: almost certainly a religious or judicial figure, rather than a military one; probably with administrative experience in the provinces; and likely someone who has a long-established record with the group dating back a decade or more."
ISIS as a state was driven out from Iraq and Syria, leaving the group now hiding out and attempting to gather their strength.
However, their have been bloody signs of recovery since 2019.
This has included a ak in Syria just last week and the horrific bombing last year during the evacuation of Kabul.
Mr Orton warned that ISIS seems to be growing in strength - but the death of al-Qurashi will likely provide some disruption.
DEAD OR ALIVE
"That said, it should not be overstated: IS has by now a very well-developed bureaucratic system and the succession will likely be smooth and swift," he told The Sun Online.
ISIS has seen its senior leadership whittled down with a mixture of arrests, airstrikes and special forces raids.
Along with al-Baghdadi and al-Quarashi, they have also lost figures such as former spokesman Abu Hassan al-Muhajir.
The Saudi national - described as the caliph's righthand man - was blown up in an air strike in north west Syria just 24 hours after his boss was killed in 2019.
Sami Jasim al-Jaburi, al-Baghdadi's deputy and ISIS's banker, was arrested by Iraqi security forces in October 2021.
He had been one of the US's most wanted, with a $5million bounty on his head - described as a "legacy member" of the terror group.
Abdul Nassr Qardash, sometimes dubbed "The Professor" or "The Destroyer", was caught in 2020 after once being tipped for leadership of ISIS.
The former general who served Saddam Hussein joined al-Qaeda before defecting to ISIS in 2011.
He however was scooped up by Iraqi forces in 2020 - and is believed to be the most high profile ISIS leader ever captured alive.
Abd al-Nasir, who was once ISIS's top warlord in Syria, is believed to have been captured, while Moataz Numan al-Jaburi, who oversaw bomb making for ISIS, was killed in 2020.
And meanwhile Saddam al-Jamal, the ISIS leader who infamously burned a pilot alive in a cage, was caught in May 2018.
Other famous ISIS leaders to have been caught or killed include Gulmurod Khalimov, known as "The Tajik", who was reportedly blown up in Syria in 2017.
Abu Waheeb - one of the ISIS warlords who helped lay the foundations for the cult - was killed back in an airstrike near Rutba in 2016.
The same year saw Abu Omar al-Shishani - known as ";The Chechen" - left clinically dead and on life support in bombing raid.
And then Abu Ali al-Anbari, once ISIS's second in command, was wiped out in a helicopter gunship raid in Syria back also in 2016.
ISIS once ruled huge swathes of territory after surging to power in chaos of sew in the Middle East amid Syrian Civil War and the aftermath of the Iraq War.
It absorbed other jihadi groups to storm across both Syria and Iraq in a bloody rampage - at its peak ruling over as many as 12million people.
Al-Baghdadi declared the caliphate in a chilling speech in June 2014 - declaring his terrorist group ruled over all Muslims worldwide.
Bolstered by fighters from across the world - including Britain - ISIS both encouraged and coordinated terrorist attacks in the West.
Beheadings, crucifixions, and disturbing execution snuff films all became common under their warped interpretation of sharia law for those living under their rule.
However, Iraq and Syria fought back with the assistance from the West and Russia - with a grinding five year campaign finally stamping out the group at the Battle of Baghuz in March 2019.
ISIS now is a scattered group - but are feared to be rebuilding their collapsed organisation.
Mr Orton told The Sun Online: "The recent prison break in Syria and the indicators from the insurgency in Iraq - particularly the local reports of people in the towns afraid to openly oppose IS and officials who take extreme security measures - suggest IS is growing in strength at the centre, and with the political conditions as they are in Syria and Iraq there is little reason to think that trendline will be reversed."
