In October of last year, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed during a night-time raid on his compound in northern Syria by US forces.

This left ISIS, or Islamic State, as it is often referred to these days, without a leader, although that void has now been filled.

I guess Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli al-Salbi has just put a rather large target on his back, with officials from two intelligence services confirming that he is now the terrorist organisation’s top dog.

Regional and western spies have spent the past three months watching the organisation, saying that Salbi has shown an ‘unflinching’ loyalty.

More below from the Guardian:

Salbi, as intelligence officials now know him, rose through the ranks helped by his background as an Islamic scholar and gave religious rulings that underwrote the genocide against Yazidis and the emptying of the Nieveh Plains in northern Iraq during the height of the Isis rampage…In 2004 he was detained by US forces in Camp Bucca prison in southern Iraq where he met Baghdadi. He is believed to have at least one son…

Before Baghdadi’s death in a US military raid in north-west Syria on 27 October, the US state department put a $5m bounty on Salbi’s head and on two other senior members of the group. Salbi was touted as a potential replacement for the ailing Baghdadi in August but confirmation of his appointment took several months to secure…

Intelligence officials have little insight into his whereabouts but suggest he is unlikely to have followed Baghdadi to Idlib province and would have preferred to stay in a small band of towns to the west of Mosul.

The Iraqi city has turned into a refuge for many of the ISIS top brass. Whilst there has been much talk about having defeated ISIS from Donald Trump and other US officials, senior Iraqi officials disagree, with one saying that he’s “seen significant uptick in Isis attacks from mid last year”.

One man who has been neutralised is senior ISIS figure Shifa al-Nima, although not without a fair deal of effort.

He had to be removed from a house on a flatbed truck, and weighed in excess of 250kg, which had led to the nickname ‘Jabba the Jihadi’:

Trump did say last year that he was keeping a close eye on the new ISIS leadership, although the identity of the new leader was still being decided at the time.

[source:guardian]