Twitter user @wikibaghdady, who has been exposing the roots of the bloody confrontation between jihadi groups in Syria, has more to reveal. Al-Akhbar publishes the secondinstallment of Twitter leaks, though it has not been possible to independently verify information.
The jihadi infighting continues, widening the rift among “comrades-in-jihad.” All attempts at mediation have failed, and the once-cold war between al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has descended into a full-fledged conflict over control of the “Islamic emirate of Syria and Iraq.”
All attempts to patch things up in the jihadi ranks, led by Emir Abu Mohammed al-Golani from time to time, have failed. Meanwhile, a war of Sharia edicts has broken out between al-Nusra Front and ISIS, with clerics issuing conflicting fatwas calling for members of the rival group to defect, all according to @wikibaghdady.
The cracks began to appear at the leadership level. The Chechen jihadi leaders, known as Omar al-Shishani and Salah al-Din al-Shishani, and Saudis Abu Azzam al-Najdi and Abdul-Wahhab al-Saqoub met and agreed on leaving Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s ISIS, based on fatwas issued by certain clerics. But Omar al-Shishani, whose real name is Tarkhan Batirashvili, found himself in a bind because all his senior commanders were opposed to this move. Batirashvili even admitted to his compatriot Salah al-Din al-Shishani that his life would be in danger if he failed to pledge allegiance to ISIS.
Batirashvili notified Colonel Haji Bakr that in the event he pledged allegiance to Baghdadi, half of his 1,650-strong army (the Army of the Muhajireen) would break away, but Haji Bakr insisted. Batirashvili then told Salah al-Din al-Shishani and his supporters that if they defect from ISIS, they would be dealt with as “kharijis” – renegades – whose sentence is death.
Under all this pressure, Batirashvili – Omar al-Baghdadi – officially pledged allegiance to Baghdadi. Then Salah al-Shishani defected from ISIS silently, taking with him 800 fighters. Haji Bakr was caught by surprise at the extent of the defections, and sent a message to Shishani, telling him to keep quiet and not go public with his defection, or face a death fatwa.
Shishani complied, but he called his group the Army of the Muhajireen. His defection was a bombshell. To contain the effects of the disaster, Haji Bakr asked comrades like Abu Bakr al-Qahtani, Abu Ali Ibrahim al-Sultan, Othman Nazeh, and the Iraqi Abu Ali al-Anbari to create a lot of fanfare over Omar al-Shishani’s pledge of allegiance to ISIS, and to meet with defecting leaders and clerics and warn them that any person who goes public with their defection would be subjecting themselves to a death sentence for mutiny.
This is how a propaganda campaign followed Omar al-Shishani’s endorsement of ISIS in parallel with complete silence over the biggest defection in the history of Baghdadi’s faction, namely, the split of 800 fighters at once. It did not end there: Dozens of fighters subsequently defected from ISIS and joined Salah al-Shishani.
Baghdadi, Haji Bakr, and Abu Ali al-Anbari tried to deal with the defections. It was proposed to withdraw passports from all foreign jihadis to prevent them from fleeing. Haji Bakr also suggested recruiting spies to report on anyone who plans to defect. All ISIS leaders agreed to this proposal, and it was suggested to intensify visits by clerics to warn fighters against mutiny with threats of eternity in hell and execution.
From the Islamic State to the Caliphate
In the meantime, reports began to circulate about plans to establish an “Islamic Front.” This news reached the ears of Haji Bakr and Baghdadi, who preempted it by planting spies in the brigades that ISIS feared most.
Haji Bakr wanted particularly to infiltrate the Ahrar al-Sham Movement, believing it to pose the greatest challenge to Baghdadi’s expansionist project (being a Salafi movement itself). Bakr planted several spies in this group, but in the beginning, they were not able to infiltrate the leadership. After that, he was able to infiltrate Ahrar al-Sham through a battalion commander affiliated with the latter.
The commander in question supplied Bakr with information about the strengths and weaknesses of Ahrar al-Sham. The most serious intelligence that reached him involved plans to merge Ahrar al-Sham with other groups like Liwaa al-Islam, Liwaa al-Tawhid, and Suqur al-Sham.
To address this threat, an urgent meeting was held during which a two-part plan was agreed: first, a media campaign to thwart the planned merger by casting it as something akin to the Iraqi anti-al-Qaeda tribal Awakening; and then aggrandizing the project for an Islamic state into an Islamic caliphate.
The latter was the idea of the ISIS-appointed wali – Islamic governor – of Aleppo Amr al-Absi, also known as Abu al-Athir al-Shami. Absi had been incarcerated in Sednaya for his affiliation with a terrorist group. His brother Firas was the first Islamist leader to label his group as a “state” in Syria, with its full name being “the Shura Council of the State of Islam.”
Firas al-Absi was killed at the Bab al-Hawa crossing after hoisting al-Qaeda’s banner along the Turkish border in an area controlled by the Farouq Brigades and Ahrar al-Sham. Amr al-Absi holds a deep grudge against these brigades, which he believes are responsible for his brother’s death. Absi took control of the Shura Council of the State of Islam, and began working on his project and his state, succeeding in increasing the number of fighters from 180 before his brother’s death to 540.
Absi reached out to Baghdadi in Iraq, seeking to create with him a unified global entity. Not many people know that Baghdadi’s first branch in Syria was Absi’s group. In the beginning, Absi sought to reach out to Saudi clerics, forming a committee led by one of his brothers to meet with Saudi clerics to endorse his project. Among the most notable clerics: Suleiman al-Alwan, Abdul-Aziz al-Tarifi, Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak, and Abdullah al-Ghunayman.
Later on, Baghdadi came to Syria, and Absi was one of the first figures to meet him and pledge allegiance, secretly in the beginning but openly later. When the Islamic Front was formed with the merger of Ahrar al-Sham, Army of Islam, Suqur al-Sham, and Liwaa al-Tawhid, then Baghdadi, Haji Bakr, and Amr al-Absi sensed danger, and it was proposed to declare an Islamic caliphate in response by upgrading ISIS’s status into a caliphate.
Amr al-Absi proposed for Baghdadi to demand recognition as caliph from Afghanistan, Chechnya, Yemen, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, and Sinai. Baghadi consulted leader of al-Qaeda in Yemen Nasser al-Wahishi, who rejected the idea. He also sent feelers to Afghanistan, where the idea was also snubbed. The same happened in Morocco, though Baghdadi received video pledges from jihadis in Sinai, Tunisia, and Libya. Ultimately, the idea failed and its proponents shelved it.
Who Killed Abdul-Qader Saleh?
Baghadi appointed Amr al-Absi as governor of Aleppo, but he was extremely wary of Liwaa al-Tawhid, a formidable force comprising 20,000 fighters, roughly five times the size of ISIS. Absi felt that Liwaa al-Tawhid constituted a major obstacle to his expansion, especially since its leader Abdul-Qader Saleh was very popular. This is how Absi decided to eliminate Saleh, whom he deemed an “Awakening” collaborator and an apostate, and informed Baghdadi of his intentions.
He did not provide details about how he would do it, but he soon declared that Saleh had been killed. Absi also proposed to Baghdadi a list of people to be assassinated from the Islamic Front and the Free Syrian Army (FSA), justifying this by citing the need to dismantle the “Awakening-like” groups.
The End of Baghdadi’s Shadow
Soon, Haji Bakr was killed in mysterious circumstances. The number-one man and mastermind in Baghdadi’s ISIS was assassinated, though it was unknown by whom. Baghdadi kept the news secret, and when Haji Bakr’s death became known, he denied it.
In the meantime, Absi had given out his orders to execute the hostages ISIS held in Aleppo before its fighters withdrew from the city, and to leave no one alive in the prisons.
A rapid succession of events pushed Baghdadi to think seriously about returning to Iraq for fear of an unknown fate, but three Iraqi figures changed his mind: Haji Bakr before he was killed, Abu Ali al-Anbari, and Abu Ayman al-Iraqi, one of the senior commanders in ISIS who belongs to the Bidour clan from south Iraq, and the ISIS-appointed “governor of the Syrian coast.”
The three figures represent the command structure in Baghdadi’s organization, but the most dangerous of them was the slain Haji Bakr, followed by Abu Ali al-Anbari, Baghdadi’s religious and Sharia adviser. However, the absence of the strong man has left the leadership somewhat unhinged.
After that, Anbari asked Saudi national Othman Nazeh to be brought to meet with all foreign fighters and sanction them to kill apostates and “Awakening” collaborators. Nazeh is a weak figure, as Baghadi and Anbari attest, and is unfit for leadership and only suitable to influence and manipulate the Saudis. All this increasingly convinced Baghdadi that his presence in Syria was a grave mistake, but his council would always dissuade him from returning to Iraq.
After the death of Haji Bakr, a silent man called Abu Yahya al-Iraqi, who replaced Bakr, now accompanies Baghdadi. Yet no one understands his exact role in the leadership, as he never leaves Baghdadi’s side whatever the circumstances. The strong bond between Iraqi and Abu Ali al-Anbari, however, has prompted people close to Baghdadi to say that Iraqi is Anbari’s minion and spy.
Leaks on @wikibaghdady’s Twitter account have not stopped. One question: Is Baghdadi thinking of waging attacks outside Syria, and if so, where? As ISIS fighters took control of most parts of the Syrian city of Raqqa, the last tweet, posted yesterday, was: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is now in Raqqa.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.