ISIS's Amaq agency revealed that the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had nominated Abdullah Qardash to lead the group.
Iraqi security expert Fadhil Abu Ragheef said in a tweet on his Twitter that Khalifa al-Baghdadi was detained in Bucca prison in Basra province, and had previously held a legitimate public position for al-Qaeda, a graduate of the College of the Grand Imam in Mosul.
He added that Qardash was close to the leader Abu Alaa al-Afri, Baghdadi's deputy and the second man in the leadership of the Islamic State, and was killed in 2016.
He pointed out that Qardash was characterized by cruelty, authoritarianism and militancy, and was the first to receive Baghdadi during the fall of Mosul.
The head of the hawk cell of the Iraqi Interior Ministry, Abu Ali al-Basri, said at the end of July that Baghdadi was in Syria, and made changes to compensate the leaders of the organization killed in recent years.
Al-Basri said that Baghdadi suffers from paralysis of his limbs due to shrapnel injuries to a spinal column, during an operation for a hawk cell in coordination with the air force during his meeting with his collaborators in the area of Hajin, southeast of the Syrian province of Deir Ezzor in 2018.