Two years earlier, IS had driven Iraqi forces from the city and their leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi had been personally welcomed by his most powerful supporter there – Abdullah Qardash. Qardash, a former Iraqi officer with a savage reputation even by IS standards, is now to succeed Al-Baghdadi as the supreme leader of the shattered but far from defeated organisation. He served as a vicious enforcer meting out severe punishments to anyone who dared oppose the supreme leader. But Qardash may be an astute choice as supreme leader. He is close to the former Iraqi officer class whose knowledge of the huge secret caches of weapons that Saddam built up in the 1980s could soon prove useful.

Source: Daily Mail October 28, 2019 22:41 UTC