Al-Shishani killing may hit foreign Daesh recruitment

NO LETUP IN VIOLENCE: Abu Omar Al-Shishani in a file photo and, rght, a video still from a video posted on social media said to be shot on Thursday shows the wreckage of a Syrian jet that was downed by Daesh near Deir El-Zor, Syria. (AFP)

BAGHDAD: The death of Daesh “minister of war” may disrupt its operations, a senior US military officer said on Thursday, and an Iraqi security expert said it could damage the terror group’s important recruitment efforts in ex-Soviet republics.

Abu Omar Al-Shishani (the Chechen), a close military adviser to Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, was killed in combat in the Iraqi district of Shirqat, south of Mosul, Amaq, a news agency that supports Daesh, said on Wednesday.
It was the first confirmation of Al-Shishani’s death, which the Pentagon said in March had probably occurred as a result of a US air strike in eastern Syria.
Hisham Al-Hashimi, who advises Iraq’s government on armed groups, said Al-Shishani had been wounded in the March attack but was treated at a hospital in Shirqat, a Daesh stronghold about 250 km north of Baghdad.
He said Al-Shishani was killed earlier this week in a nearby village along with an aide by an airstrike during combat with US-backed Iraqi forces closing in on the area.
The commander of the US-led coalition battling Daesh, US Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, expressed confidence in the intelligence that led to the recent strike on Al-Shishani in the Tigris River valley where Shirqat is located, but declined on Thursday to declare him dead.
“We’re being a little conservative in calling the ball on whether or not he’s actually dead. But we certainly gave it our best shot,” MacFarland told reporters in Baghdad, joking that Al-Shishani might be the “Rasputin of this conflict.”
Some analysts speculated that Al-Shishani might in fact have died in March but Daesh delayed its announcement to allow time to line up a successor.
Yet there was no immediate word from Daesh about who would take over for the ginger-bearded terrorist who held as many as three senior posts and was a strong force for recruitment from Russia’s mainly Muslim North Caucasus region and Central Asia.
“Daesh lost something important: The charisma that he had to inspire and seduce radicals from Chechnya, the Caucasus and Azerbaijan — the former Soviet republics,” Hashimi said.
Asked about the potential impact, MacFarland said it could disrupt Daesh State operations if Al-Shishani were indeed dead. “They would have to figure out who’s going to pick up his portfolio,” he said.
Born in 1986 in Georgia, then still part of the Soviet Union, Al-Shishani once fought with Chechen rebels against the Russian military in the Caucasus province. He then joined independent Georgia’s military in 2006 and fought in its brief war with Russia two years later before receiving a medical discharge, according to US officials.
He was one of only a few terror leaders with a professional military background and had several hundred fighters, mostly from ex-Soviet republics, under his command when he came to prominence in a 2013 battle against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces in northern Syria.
Hashimi said it was not clear who Daesh would choose to replace Al-Shishani, but it was likely to be someone with a similar ethnic background.
“The replacement must be Chechen because there was an agreement between Daesh and the Army of Muhajireen and Ansar that this position must be filled by a Chechen,” said Hashimi, referring to a Syria-based militant group that split when Al-Shishani pledged allegiance to Baghdadi.
According to photographs circulated online, road signs erected in areas controlled by Daesh are sometimes written in three languages — Arabic, English, and Russian — testifying to the important role of Russian speakers.