...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
leader, His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
...the head of ISIS, or what remains of it, and a veteran of the Abu Graib jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us. So far he has been killed at least four times, though not yet by a stake through the heart..., survived an attempt by imported muscle to overthrow him, while in hideout in Syria, western intelligence officials said Thursday.
| Update from the Daily Mail at 12:40 p.m. ET: |
The area, near the Euphrates River valley, is last of the terrorist group's territory.
ISIS issued a reward for liquidation of senior member Abu Muath al-Jazairi.
'They got wind of it just in time,' an intelligence official told the Guardian. 'There was a clash and two people were killed. This was the foreign fighter element, some of his most trusted people.'
After years of fighting, there are just 500 gunnies left, down from a peak of at least 70,000 in 2015.
The news comes after he reportedly issued an order to kill 320 of his followers for their 'betrayal' of ISIS and their 'recklessness' which 'inflicted heavy losses on the group in both Iraq and Syria' back in October 2018.
High-profile commanders said to be on the hit list include Abu al-Baraa al-Ansari, Sief al-Din al-Iraqi, Abu Otham al-Tal Afari, Abu Iman al-Mowahed and Marawan Hadid al-Suri.
Isis fighters have been fleeing the area to surrender themselves to Kurdish-led forces near Deir ez-Zor over the past three weeks.
Intelligence officials believe the diminished group have enough weapons to last at least another month.