The end of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a Syrian hell hole at the hands of the US troops may not spell the conclusive destruction of the brutal jihadi machine he had created. The Isis terror group appointed a new leader hours after news of the killing of al-Baghdadi was confirmed. The new leader of the jihadi group is Abdullah Qardash, a former Iraqi military officer. Qardash is also known as Hajji Abdullah al-Afari and was a member of the brutal army of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. A few months ago, Baghdadi appointed Qardash, whose name is also spelled as Karshesh, as the "Muslim affairs" head of the group, ISIS official Amaq news agency had reported.
Publications including the Newsweek reported late Sunday the appointment of Qardash as the new Isis leader.
Here are some of the details available so far about the new head of Isis:
- Qardash was being primed for the top job in Isis for quite some time. He was seen as a natural successor to Baghdadi, whose death, injury and fatal illness were variously reported throughout the past several years.
- Within the jihadi group, Qardash is known as 'Professor'.
- There were reports in August that Qardash was nominated as Baghdadi's successor after the jihadi group's founder was supposedly wounded in a US airstrike.
- Since then, Qardash was running the the day-to-day operations of the the jihadi organisation.
- Qardash was jailed by the US authorities following the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the ouster of Saddam Hussein.
- He became a close associate of Baghdadi, who was also kept in the Basra jail.
- As the 'top legislator' of the jihadi group, Qardash was apparently behind the most inhuman and arcane ideologies the terror outfit foisted on its followers.
Earlier, US president Donald Trump confirmed the US marked a major win in the fight against the Islamist terror outfit Isis in Syria as American troop took the scalp of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. "Last night the United States brought the world's #1 terrorist leader to justice. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead," Trump said. "He died like a dog. He died like a coward. The world is now a much safer place," the US president declared.
The Sunni Islamic terrorist, whose declaration of the so-called Islamic caliphate in Iraq and Syria in 2014 started a vicious killing spree, betrayed his depravity even in the final moments of his death as he killed three children whom he had used as a human shield.
Baghdadi, who was a cleric in a mosque in the beginning of the century, became the leader of Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) in 2010. The terrorist, who was born in 1971, is believed to have been under US captivity during the 2003 war. He was in hiding in the last five years even as the allied forces reduced most of his terror empire to rubble.
When the US troops closed in on him Baghdadi, who had ordered cold-blooded killings that brought hitherto unknown levels of cruelty to terror acts, detonated a suicide vest, killing himself. At least three children also died in the blast. His body was blasted into pieces but Trump said DNA testing done on the spot established his identity.
