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Battle for Mosul: Baghdadi Flees City, Leaves Cmdrs. Behind

Battle for Mosul: Baghdadi Flees City, Leaves Cmdrs. Behind
folder_openIraq access_time7 years ago
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Iraqi and US officials believe the leader of Daesh [Arabic acronym for "ISIS" / "ISIL"], Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had fled and left operational commanders behind with die-hard followers to fight the battle of Mosul, and is now hiding out in the desert, focusing mainly on his own survival.

Battle for Mosul: Baghdadi Flees City, Leaves Cmdrs. Behind

It is impossible to confirm the whereabouts of the Daesh "caliph," who declared himself the ruler of all Muslims from Mosul's Great Mosque after his forces swept through northern Iraq in 2014.

But US and Iraqi intelligence sources said an absence of official communication from the group's leadership and the loss of territory in Mosul suggest he had abandoned the city, by far the largest population center his group had ever held.

He had proved to be an elusive target, rarely using communication that can be monitored, and moving constantly, often multiple times in one 24-hour cycle, the sources say.

From their efforts to track him, they believe he hides mostly among sympathetic civilians in familiar desert villages, rather than with fighters in their barracks in urban areas where combat had been underway, the sources said.

At the height of its power two years ago, Daesh ruled over millions of people in territory running from northern Syria through towns and villages along the Tigris and Euphrates River valleys to the outskirts of Baghdad in Iraq.

Iraqi forces began an operation five months ago to recapture Mosul, a city at least four times the size of any other the group has held.

The 100,000-strong Iraqi force fully captured the eastern half of Mosul in January, and commanders began an operation to cross the Tigris and take the western half last month. Progress had since been steady and the coalition said its victory is now inevitable, which would dismantle the caliphate in Iraq.

The intelligence sources point to a sharp drop in Daesh postings on social media as evidence that Baghdadi and his circle had become increasingly isolated. Baghdadi himself had not released a recorded speech since early November, two weeks after the start of the Mosul battle, when he called on his followers to fight the "unbelievers" and "make their blood flow as rivers."

The group's presence on Telegram, a social media network that had become its main platform for announcements and speeches, has tapered off. The coalition estimates that Daesh activity on Twitter had fallen by 45 percent since 2014, with 360,000 of the group's Twitter accounts suspended so far and new ones usually shut down within two days.

In what is likely to be a major symbolic victory for the Iraqi forces, they are now closing in on the area around Mosul's Great Mosque on the western bank of the Tigris.

More than half of the 6,000 militants left to defend the city had been killed, according to Hisham al-Hashimi, the author of the book "World of Daesh," who also advises the Iraqi government.

The last official report about Baghdadi was from the Iraqi military on Feb. 13. Iraqi F-16s carried out a strike on a house where he was thought to be meeting other commanders, in western Iraq, near the Syrian border, it said.

Baghdadi, an Iraqi whose real name is Ibrahim al-Samarrai, is moving in a remote, mostly desert stretch populated exclusively by Sunni Arab tribes north of the Euphrates River, according to Hashimi.

The area stretches from the town of Baaj, in northwestern Iraq, to the Syrian border town of Albukamal on the Euphrates.

"It's their historic region, they know the people there and the terrain; food, water and gasoline are easy to get, spies are easier to spot" than in crowded areas, he said.

But Baghdadi seems to have learned the lessons from the 2011 capture and killing of Osama bin Ladin, and relies on multiple couriers and not just one, unlike the al-Qaeda founder, US intelligence sources sauid.

He also switches cars during trips, a lesson learned from the 2011 drone strike that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaeda figure in Yemen.

iraq | isis | al qaeda | abu bakr al baghdadi | daesh | isil | al qaida

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team

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