Implications of Daesh’s shadowy leader Al-Qurayshi’s killing
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On February 3, US special forces decapitated Daesh’s reclusive chief Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi in northwestern Syria’s Idlib province. Al-Qurayshi’s killing has come when many believe Daesh was on the revival path. Deash’s January 21 complex and coordinated attack on Ghwayran prison in northeastern Syria’s Haska city, housing more than 3,000 group inmates, preceded his assassination. The ensuing battle following the jailbreak raged on for ten days and spread to the Haska city, drawing the US and British air and ground troops into the fight. The attempted jailbreak underscored Deash’s continued resilience. Since assuming Daesh’s leadership, jailbreaks were one of the major planks of al-Qurayshi’s strategy to revive the militant group’s declining fortunes.
The 45-year-old al-Qurayshi, whose real name was Amir Muhammad Sa’id Abd-al-Rahman al-Mawla, also went by the nom de guerres of Abdullah Qaradash, Abu Omar al-Turkmani and Hajji Abdullah. He took over the leadership of Daesh in October 2019 after the killing of his predecessor Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who was also eliminated by US special forces in Idlib. It is essential to mention that both Deash leaders took their lives along with their family members instead of surrendering. Though al-Qurayshi’s killing is a setback for Daesh in the short term, it is inconsequential in the long term, given that the group gives more importance to ideological resilience and organizational longevity, not personalities.
Born in 1977, al-Qurayshi hailed from Mahlabiya, a town between Iraq’s Tal Afar and Mosul regions, where Turk and Arab ethnicities have co-existed and comingled for centuries. Though names al-Qurayshi and al-Hashemi denoted his Arab origin, considered a pre-requisite by Sunnis for the caliphate, his alleged mixed-ethnicity roots created suspicions about his Arab background. However, this suspicion was removed in November 2019 when an Arabic daily al-Quds al-Arabi revealed his real identity in a detailed profile based on declassified intelligence reports. At any rate, al-Qurayshi, who headed Daesh for two years and three months, maintained a low profile. Unlike al-Baghdadi, who issued several audio and video messages between 2010 and 2019, al-Qurayshi was never heard or seen publicly.
Despite a non-charismatic persona, al-Qurayshi still represented a continuity of leadership from Daesh’s (then Al-Qaeda in Iraq) founder Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to al-Baghdadi. Like al-Baghdadi, al-Qurayshi had formal religious training and held a master’s degree in Islamic Studies. He also served as a judge for Daesh before the US captured and detained him in 2008. However, unlike al-Baghdadi, who commanded Daesh when it held vast swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria along with a large legion of foreign fighters, under al-Qurayshi’s leadership, the militant group’s focus was survival and battle for relevance.
In case al-Qurayshi’s successor does not have the same religious or military credentials or the Arab background linking him with the tribe of Quraish, it will create difficulties for the militant group to retain its legitimacy and attract fresh recruits. It can potentially spark a succession struggle or internal rifts as well. It is important to note that Daesh has maintained complete silence over al-Qurayshi’s killing, neither confirming nor disputing his death. Likewise, there is no indication of who the new leader would be. The longer Daesh’s shura takes to announce the new leader, the greater are the chances of internal rifts.
As long as regional conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine linger on, exclusionary sectarian politics as well as inter and intrastate disputes and external interventions persist, Daesh will find the breathing space to survive and stay relevant.
Abdul Basit Khan
It is expected that Daesh’s next leader is likely to come from a tightly knit sub-group from Tal-Afar, locally known as Qaradish. The same sub-group al-Qurayshi belonged to. At any rate, the immediate challenge for the new leader would be to secure bayah or oath of allegiances from worldwide affiliates. Another unavoidable challenge for the new leader would be to choose between staying anonymous like al-Qurayshi and risk losing the regional affiliates' support or make intermittent public appearances like al-Baghdadi and endanger his life. Finally, the new Daesh leader will have to prove his violent credentials through high-profile signature attacks to win the loyalty and respect of the central group in Iraq and Syria and regional affiliates.
Beyond tactical setbacks, leadership capitation is unlikely to affect militant groups like Daesh, which pre-plan for the day after by moving their center of gravity from charismatic leadership to resilient ideology and flexible organizational structures. Since losing territorial holdings in Iraq and Syria in 2019, Daesh has transformed into a decentralized network, waging a global insurgency and staying relevant through audacious attacks and social media propaganda.
For South Asia, where Daesh-Khorasan has been active since 2015, al-Qurayshi’s killing is unlikely to have a significant impact. For Daesh-K, it will be business as usual, given its operations' decentralized and operationally autonomous nature. While Daesh-K and other regional affiliates are politically and ideologically connected to the central group, they are mainly independent. They have continued their activities irrespective of developments in Iraq and Syria. For instance, Daesh’s territorial setbacks between 2017 and 2019 and al-Baghdadi’s killing did not impact their operations in a major way.
The US withdrawal from Afghanistan provided Daesh-K with greater operational freedom and a more permissible environment to regroup. According to the United National Security Council’s recent report, Daesh-K’s operational strength has increased to 4,000 fighters spread across Afghanistan. The report notes that Deash leadership does not directly communicate with Daesh-K. However, the report also mentions that after a gap of one year, Daesh-K received funds in the low hundreds and thousands from Daesh. As per the report, Daesh has earmarked an amount of $500,000 for supporting Daesh-K.
Presently, Daesh is weak at the core and strong at the periphery, surviving and expanding through its worldwide affiliates. The leadership decapitation is just one of the several measures needed to degrade and eliminate Daesh. Alongside leadership decapitation, disrupting financial means, logistical networks, undermining ideological appeal, and more importantly, addressing structural factors that incubate and sustain groups like Daesh are needed. As long as regional conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine among others linger on, exclusionary sectarian politics as well as inter and intrastate disputes and external interventions persist, Daesh will find the breathing space to survive and stay relevant.
- The author is a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore. Twitter: @basitresearcher.
