The Islamic State has begun selecting its new leader from a circle close to experienced Iraqi leaders, to succeed Abdullah Qardash, who was killed in an American raid last week, and analysts expect the organization to choose its new leader in the coming weeks.
According to a report published by the British newspaper "Daily Mail", security officials and independent analysts believe that there are 4 potential candidates to lead the organization to succeed Qardash, who blew himself up during a raid by US forces in northern Syria, and one of them was announced by the White House last year.
The Iraqi security expert, Fadel Abu Ragheef, said that among these candidates is Abdullah Makki Al-Rifai, known as "Abu Khadija", whose last known role was as the leader of the Islamic State in the Iraqi province of Diyala, and "Abu Muslim", the leader of the organization in Anbar province (west of Iraq), and the third is called "Abu Saleh", and there is not enough information about him, but he was close to Qardash and the former leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was also killed in an American raid in 2019.
There is also the governor of Iraq, Jabbar Salman Ali al-Issawi, or Abu Yasir al-Issawi, who is suspected to be still alive, and who is valuable to the group because he has long military experience.
Al-Issawi was reported killed in an airstrike in January 2021 by Iraqi forces as well as the US-led international coalition fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
But an Iraqi security official confirmed the existence of strong suspicions that al-Issawi is still alive, and said, "If he is not dead, he will be a candidate, and he has been tested in planning military attacks and has thousands of supporters."
The official added that ISIS was most likely carrying out a security combing operation to discover possible leaks that led to the killing of Qureshi before meeting to choose or announce a successor.
The editor-in-chief of the American magazine "New Lines" Hassan Hassan said that the new leader of the organization will be a veteran Iraqi leader.
"If they choose one in the coming weeks, they will have to choose someone from the same constituency (...) The group that was part of the Abdul Rahman al-Qudoli group, better known as Abu Ali al-Anbari, one of the prominent figures who worked with the organization since its inception," he said.
The killing of Qardash, 45, constituted another painful blow to ISIS, two years after it lost its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in a similar US raid in 2019.
Qardash - who was also known as "The Professor" and Washington gave a $10 million reward to locate him - blew himself up after US forces stormed his home in northern Syria last week.
Qardash never addressed his fighters or followers in public, avoided electronic communications, and oversaw the move to fight in small units that were moved in response to intense pressure from Iraqi and US-led forces.
US and Iraqi intelligence confirmed earlier that Abdullah Qardash or Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi is an Iraqi Turkman, also known as Haji Abdullah, from Nineveh Governorate (northern Iraq).