Al Baghdadi is Dead, ISIS Confirms, Naming New Leader and Threatening Revenge: U.S. Braces Itself While Hunting Down Other Targets

Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi had been named as the successor to Al Baghdadi.  

IS Promises Big Announcement as US Braces for Revenge 

By Jeff Seldin VOA

One of the Islamic State terror group’s media divisions is promising supporters that a major announcement is on the way — the first of its kind since the death of its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in a U.S. raid on Sunday. 
 
IS’s Al-Furqan Foundation started promoting the announcement at midday Wednesday. 
 
“Coming Soon … By the Willingness of Allah the Almighty,” the announcement said, without sharing details. 

In first significant announcement since Baghdadi’s death ISIS teases a forthcoming release from its Al Furqan media foundation- the media wing responsible for the most important releases (such as the Baghdadi video and audio earlier this year)

The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist communications, said supporters quickly began distributing the poster on social media platforms, with some expressing hope that Baghdadi was still alive while others were preparing to celebrate his martyrdom. 
 
IS official media operatives have been issuing their usual news updates on operations in Syria, Iraq and around the world, but they have been silent so far about the fate of Baghdadi, who was killed by U.S. special forces in a raid on a compound in Barisha in Syria’s Idlib province. 

U.S. officials also confirmed the death of Al Baghdadi and the death of IS spokesman Abu Hassan al-Muhajir in a follow-on operation a day later in Jarablus, near Syria’s border with Turkey. 

Impact of killings
 
Trump and U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper have described the death of Baghdadi and one of his top lieutenants as a significant blow to the terror organization, while promising to hunt down other top officials.  

Retribution attack’
 
And while it may take time for IS to get itself organized under a new leader, McKenzie cautioned that the group would be dangerous. 
 
“We suspect they will try some form of retribution attack, and we are postured and prepared for that,” he told reporters at the Pentagon. 
 
A top counterterrorism official Wednesday echoed those concerns, warning the impact of Baghdadi’s death, while damaging to morale, might be limited. 
 
“It’s a deep bench,” Russell Travers, acting director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, told members of the House Homeland Security Committee of the terror group’s overall leadership. 
   
“This is a bureaucracy that’s pretty good at doing succession planning,” he said. 
 
Travers, along with the director of the FBI and the acting director of the Department of Homeland Security, further warned that IS remained a capable and potent organization, commanding at least 14,000 fighters across Syria and Iraq, many of them operating in diffuse and clandestine cells that continue to launch attacks. 
 
Those numbers also could get a boost from IS fighters who escaped from makeshift prisons run by the Syrian Democratic Forces, most of them getting free during the initial days of Turkey’s military incursion in northeastern Syria. 

Expected to linger
 
“Our expectation is that the vast majority of the individuals who escaped, more likely than not, were Syrian and Iraqi, and will be looking to stay in the region,” Travers said. “They will be incorporated into the ISIS insurgency in all likelihood, and we could well see them serve as suicide bombers.” 
 
U.S. counterterrorism officials also expressed concern that some of them could be used in renewed attacks on the SDF-run prisons, as well as on displaced-persons camps housing tens of thousands of IS wives, children and other family members. 

In the last message before his death, Baghdadi last month called on IS followers to free members of the group who may have been captured or imprisoned. 
 
“For your brothers and sisters, make [an] effort in saving them and destroying the gates that imprison them,” Baghdadi said in a Sept. 16 audio recording.   

“I assume that we will see some of that,” Travers said Wednesday. “Those prisons are vulnerable.” 
 
FBI Director Christopher Wray also warned of indications that IS was preparing to make increased use of women and children. 
 
“We know that ISIS has started to take advantage of women in operational planning and trying to recruit youth, some of them in these displacement camps,” Wray said. “That’s going to present all kinds of problems for us and our partners.” 

VOA NEWS comments Islamic State has confirmed the death of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, days after President Donald Trump announced the terrorist leader was killed during a U.S. military raid in Syria.

The militant group’s Amaq news agency said Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi has been named the new Islamic State leader. It also confirmed the death of IS spokesman Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, who U.S. officials said was killed in an operation in Jarablus, near Syria’s border with Turkey, that was conducted a day after the one targeting Baghdadi.

The military operation against Baghdadi took place Saturday.

U.S. military officials have said the raid on Baghdadi was months in the making, a culmination of intense surveillance, human intelligence and, finally, because the right opportunity presented itself.

General Kenneth F. McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, who oversaw the mission, told reporters he gave the special operations team the go-ahead at 9 a.m. EDT (1300 UTC) Saturday, after having fully briefed the president.

The special operations team then staged the final assault from Syria, flying to the location of Baghdadi’s hideout in Barisha, near the Turkish border, accompanied by drones, attack helicopters and fighter jets, he said.

Upon their arrival at the site, about 10 to 15 fighters from nearby compounds, possibly thinking they were under attack, began firing at the U.S. forces and were killed.

U.S. forces then approached the compound, calling for those inside to surrender. One group, including 11 children, came out and were moved away from the site after being checked for weapons and explosive devices.

Once inside, U.S. forces shot and killed four women and one man, all believed to be suicide bombers, after they refused requests in Arabic to stop, McKenzie said.

It was at that point the U.S. team came upon Baghdadi, who fled into a tunnel before killing himself.

Last known video of Al Baghdadi supposedly talking:

National Security correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report