Death of IS leader | What impact for Daesh?

The leader of the Islamic State (IS) group died on Thursday. Amir Mohammed Said Abdel Rahman al-Mawla, better known as Abu Ibrahim al-Hachimi al-Qurachi, had headed the terrorist organization for about two years. What consequences could his disappearance have? Explanations.

Janie Gosselin
The Press

decline

The impact of the death of al-Qurachi – who blew himself up during an operation by US forces, according to the White House – is difficult to assess. “There’s a whole debate in political science about whether it works, killing the leader of a terrorist movement or organization,” said Mia Bloom, a professor at Georgia State University. The majority of researchers say no, it does not end an organization. His death raises a lot of questions about the band’s situation. “They are rebuilding, perhaps faster than analysts had estimated, notes Haroro Ingram, researcher in the program on extremism at George Washington University. The death of al-Qurachi – of al-Mawla – it’s hard not to see a setback. The associate professor at the University of Sherbrooke Sami Aoun estimates that it will have a psychological effect. “Symbolically, the fact of beheading a leader of a group is already very significant for morale and to underline that this war continues against this ultra-violent Islamism that we call the Islamic State”, he explains. It remains unclear how many people claim to belong to the IS group, also known by its Arabic acronym Daesh.

Unrecognized

Before becoming head of IS, al-Qurachi had participated in the massacres of the Yazidi minority, according to the American think tank Counter Extremism Project. “He was not known for his religious knowledge despite his position. He was more of a torturer, a fanatic,” notes Sami Aoun. The man of Turkmen origin was nicknamed “professor” and “destroyer”. He succeeded Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, killed by an American operation in October 2019, but he remains less well known than his two predecessors. He would have been in his mid-forties. “In two years, it’s very difficult to say whether al-Qurachi has left an imprint on the movement. He was not famous like Baghdadi,” Ms.^me Bloom. “He’s the one who stayed the shortest,” said Mr. Ingram. I think this is an indication of immense group pressure from US and allied forces, but also possibly an indication that there was internal pressure due to controversies around al-Mawla. The former Saddam Hussein officer was incarcerated in a US prison in 2004, and has been portrayed by US officials as an informant.

Succession

For IS, its leader is the Supreme Leader. And does not become “caliph” who wants. “They are going to choose someone very similar to his predecessor, who is going to describe himself as a religious scholar, who is going to describe himself as a veteran of the battlefield, who is going to describe himself as a descendant of the line of the Prophet Muhammad,” supposes Mr. Ingram. It is not known who could now succeed him: the terrorist organization likes to operate in secrecy. “Even in the case of al-Baghdadi, it took years before he made a public appearance and weeks before he released an audio message,” he said. The new leader will also be presented under another symbolic name. “It would be a significant failure if his identity were exposed too soon,” Ingram said.

Organization

Al-Qurachi’s death comes as IS has returned to the news with an assault on a prison in Syria’s Hassakeh region that left 373 people dead. The jihadist organization has made a name for itself in Iraq and Syria, where it declared a caliphate in 2014. It was defeated in 2019, but has not been stopped. “Even if we did not hear about it, that does not mean that there are not continuing to be operations or terrorist attacks in Syria or Iraq”, recalls Mr.^me Bloom. She points out that the terrorist movement is growing outside the Middle East, in the Philippines or in the African Sahel, for example. The Islamic State in Khorasan (ISIS-K) branch came to prominence in Afghanistan with a suicide bombing last August. In several territories, there are dissensions and clashes between different jihadist groups, whether they claim to be from the Islamic State or Al-Qaeda. In the region where al-Qurachi died, the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is also present. “Al-Qurachi and al-Baghdadi were killed in territory partly controlled by [ce groupe]grade M^me Bloom. This may be an indication that Daesh is weak, because there is competition between jihadist groups in the region. »

With Agence France-Presse