Daesh declares death of Baghdadi’s successor, avoids details

Ahmed Sultan

In September 2018, a state of alert was declared at one of the top-secret headquarters of Iraqi security, while the Special Forces was moving one of the most prominent leaders of the terrorist Daesh organization for a TV interview after his arrest.

The moments of silence were disrupted by the sound of shackles being opened to release Ismail al-Eithawi, who also uses the alias Abu Zaid al-Iraqi, one of Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s aides, to face the camera and give his statement on the period he spent fighting for Daesh.

Eithawi was captured in February when Iraqi agents used the Telegram messaging app on his mobile phone to lure other Islamic State commanders to cross the border from Syria into Iraq, where they were captured.

During his interview, Eithawi was asked about the most prominent candidates for the succession of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the leadership of Daesh. His eyes moved rapidly, and then he looked at the ground before talking about the next caliphate of terror.

Eithawi tried to avoid looking into the camera for a while, then said, “I think the main candidate to Baghdadi’s succession is Al-Haj Abdullah Qardash, also known as Abu Omar Qardash, who is one of Baghdadi’s oldest companions.”

Qardash’s name was mentioned on more than one occasion before, especially that he was one of the top ISIS leaders, according to a previous report published by The Reference, Daesh members used to call him “The Destroyer”, and claim he is Quraysh-descendent.

Qardash was head of security in Syria and Iraq and used to eliminate whoever he deemed an enemy to the terrorist organization. He was also nominated to become head of Daesh in Lebanon, when the organization aspired to establish a branch in Beirut.

However, despite being put on lists of top dangerous individuals, no intel was retrieved regarding Qardash since 2014 due to following a high security system that prevented him from being tracking or arrested.

Daesh’s newsletter, namely Al-Nabaa, in its 193th issue, mentioned that Qardash was among a group of emissaries sent by Baghdadi to Syria to start a gang war against the Syrian army and establish Daesh cells before the conflict between Al-Nusra and Daesh in 2014.

He also was responsible for tracking down and eliminating Daesh leaders who were at odds with Baghdadi from 2017 and 2018 regarding the way he runs the organization. But despite that Al-Nabaa declared the killing of Baghdadi’s potential successor, it did not mention details of his killing so far.