ISIS Reportedly Names New Leader After Killing of Baghdadi and His Right-hand Man

Abdullah Qardash has been tapped the new chief of the group after the U.S. announced Sunday that it killed Baghdadi and Abu Hassan al-Muhajir.

A new leader for the Islamic State has been named following the killing of the group’s previous commander, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in a U.S. Special Forces raid in northwest Syria.

Late Sunday, Baghdadi’s right-hand man and ISIS spokesman Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, who The New York Times reported would be Baghdadi’s likely successor, was also killed.

According to The National, Abdullah Qardash, an Iraqi of Turkmen origin, had been named by Baghdadi as his successor in August.

Although the details of the succession are unclear, Newsweek cited an unnamed regional intelligence official as saying that Qardash, a former Saddam Hussein-era military officer from Tal Afar near Mosul, was slated to take over Baghdadi’s role before the killing of both leaders.

Also Monday, the commander of Syria’s Kurdish forces said that his group’s intelligence unit carried out a joint operation with U.S. troops targeting Muhajir in northern Syria hours after Baghdadi was killed.

According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Muhajir was killed while travelling in a convoy made up of an oil tanker and a sedan.

The report came hours after U.S. President Donald Trump announced Baghdadi had been killed in a Syria’s Idlib province.