Death of Baghdadi Unlikely to End the Insurgency He Led by Isabel Coles, Jared Malsin and Warren P. Strobel – Wall Street Journal
The death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi deprives Islamic State of its ideological head at a time when it is reeling from the loss of its self-proclaimed caliphate and trying to keep its extremist ideas alive.
Still, the group’s flexible hierarchy and decentralized authority has helped it replace other slain leaders quickly. Baghdadi’s death won’t be enough to end an insurgency and ideology of international terrorism that has spawned affiliated groups from Afghanistan to West Africa and remains central to the global jihadist movement.
Baghdadi “was a uniquely charismatic figure who built a terrorist state that attracted like-minded individuals around the world and exploited the power vacuum in Iraq and Syria,” said a U.S. official. “His fingerprints are all over that.”
Islamic State grew under Baghdadi into a massive proto-state that used Western social media platforms to advance the cause of radical Islam. After attacks from an array of forces backed by international powers, it survived the destruction of its self-proclaimed caliphate and transformed into an underground insurgency, stepping up car bombings and assassinations in both Iraq and Syria
A weakened Islamic State could look to combine with the other leading global jihadist group, al Qaeda…