Tuesday May 22, 2018
By Cristina Maza
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his first appearance on video when he gave a sermon in Mosul in July 2014 . PHOTO: Al-FURQAAN MEDIA
The Islamic State has almost entirely lost control over territory in
Iraq and Syria, and rumors claim that the group’s leader Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi is either dead or severely disabled.
Several
analysts indicate that ISIS, the Islamic militants who pledged to
invade the West and establish an Islamic State based on Sharia law
across the globe, has now been relegated to online forums and encrypted
messaging apps, through which it urges its followers to carry out lone
wolf attacks. In April, the Department of Defense declared that the defeat of ISIS was imminent.
Nevertheless, top U.S. counterintelligence officials suspect that
the group’s leader is still alive and plotting the organization’s
comeback, according to reports. An Islamic State official arrested by
Turkey early this year claimed that the organization’s leader is helping
plan school children’s curriculums in Syria in an effort to spread the
group’s ideology. And even if the militant was lying, some experts say
the group has shifted behind the scenes in the wake of its military
defeats in the Middle East, and has simultaneously spread its tentacles
to other parts of the globe.
“It's difficult to say whether or
not al-Baghdadi is alive, especially as ISIS has a public relations'
incentive to maintain that he is still alive and directing operations.
However, to understand the growing threat of ISIS, it is partially
immaterial whether or not he is alive and its continued survival in
Syria," Harrison Akins, a Middle East security expert at the Howard
Baker Center, told Newsweek. "Much of the perceived threat of
ISIS has been the adoption of the ISIS mantle by affiliate groups in
conflicts around the world, much as groups previously adopted the al
Qaeda brand.”ISIS also has a small base in Afghanistan, where it has taken credit for several deadly attacks in the country’s capital Kabul. ISIS-affiliated groups are also increasingly operating in Africa. On Monday, the group took credit for an attack on a vehicle
carrying Egypt’s security forces in the Sinai Peninsula. And although
ISIS does sometimes take credit for attacks it did not carry out, there
is ample evidence that groups loosely affiliated with ISIS continue to
operate around the world. Most recently, prosecutors in Brazil charged 11 people with trying to operate an ISIS cell in the South American nation.
“These
ISIS groups, such as the ones in Somalia, Afghanistan, or the
Philippines, are factions that have splintered from pre-existing groups
such as Al Shabaab, the Taliban, and Abu Sayyaf. As these groups grew
out of their own conflict environment, it is difficult to say what
control or influence the leadership of ISIS in Syria has over them,”
Akins added.
One of the most recent reports from Iraqi officials
suggested that al-Baghdadi is alive in Syria’s Jazeera desert and was
wounded in airstrikes. He is one of the world’s most wanted individuals,
and the U.S. is offering a $25 million reward that could lead to his
capture.