Islamic State Executes 13 Top Commanders After Failed Coup Plot

Friday, July 3, 2015

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LONDON --- Thirteen top ISIS leaders, including five high-ranking military commanders, have been executed on the orders of the group's chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi after a failed coup attempt to topple him, a media report has said.

"For the first time there has been an attempt to depose Abu Bakr al-Baghadi," London-based Arabic language Alaraby Aljadeed newspaper reported, quoting Syrian and Iraqi sources.

It said that ISIS has foiled a serious coup attempt aimed at deposing Mr Baghdadi and executed 13 prominent commanders, including five high-ranking military commanders, for their role in the conspiracy.

"Most of the executed commanders were Arabs from the Arab Maghreb [northern Africa] region, Syria, Yemen and Kuwait. One Kurd and one Chechen were also executed," the article said.

It said the aborted coup "took place after harsh disputes over the course the group's military operations were taking and their expansion to include jihadist factions that opposed the group, especially in Syria, Libya and Afghanistan."

The report comes on the heels of earlier accounts that ISIS had executed Abu Usman al-Hassan - the top ISIS commander in Mosul and a member of the group's advisory board and also a friend of Mr Baghdadi - "on charges of conspiracy".

Citing its source in the Iraqi city of Mosul, the paper said that a plot had been drawn up to kill Mr Baghdadi near the south of the Syrian city of Raqqa, the de-facto capital of the ISIS, which has seized a swath of land in Iraq and Syria.

According to the source, the exposure of the coup and subsequent executions, which took place between June 10 and 13, came as "a powerful shock - the most violent that group has seen internally."

"Treachery among the plotters of the operation led to its exposure two days before its enactment," he added.

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