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Radio Iran Claims Al Baghdadi Dead

ISIS denies the claim by Radio Iran that al Baghdadi is dead, as a result of injuries he sustained in a U.S. airstrike last November.

Another network played a video of the convoy being hit, claiming Baghdadi is in the video, but others say the man in the video is Seyfullakh Shishani, and the video was in February, 2014.

The media has been wrong multiple times about ISIS leaders getting killed, from Omar Shishani to Abu Wahib. How many times did Ilyas Kashmiri die? At least 4, if I recall. He was becoming like that Saturday night skit,"Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead."

In any event, I don't think his passing would make any difference to ISIS. They plan for things like this.

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  • Display: Sort:
    I don't think ISIS plans for such things (5.00 / 1) (#1)
    by Militarytracy on Mon Apr 27, 2015 at 08:36:56 AM EST
    And this joint confirmation is huge.

    I guess you forgot al Baghdadi had declared himself Caliph, that's how you get to a Caliphate Jeralyn.  Without a Caliph do you have a Caliphate?

    ISIS commanders have reportedly been executing other members and fighters since last winter in fits of paranoia.  If al Baghdadi is dead, who will rule and run this Caliphate, there can be only one :)

    ISIS has so many serious structural challenges, it isn't even funny...and now they are Caliphless.  For their Caliph to have been so easily killed in a drone strike, it sort of kills some of the Caliphate religious fervor...perhaps ISIS is not the will of Allah?

    I Would Think... (none / 0) (#5)
    by ScottW714 on Mon Apr 27, 2015 at 11:24:39 AM EST
    ...there has to be another religious angle, I am assuming that part of the propaganda is that he was 'anointed' by god to rule the Caliphate, so what happens when he gets killed ?

    I don't know how any of it works, but it would seem like this is going to seriously hamper their propaganda push.  

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    Puhlease... These are religionistas. (none / 0) (#6)
    by Mr Natural on Mon Apr 27, 2015 at 11:37:03 AM EST
    Whether eastern or western, there is no end to religious rationalization.  Whatever happens, it was the invisible guy's will.  The faithful lap it up.

    As far as I'm concerned, it's just another thousand year reich that didn't last.


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    Obviously They Will Continue... (none / 0) (#7)
    by ScottW714 on Mon Apr 27, 2015 at 12:12:44 PM EST
    ...but that wasn't my point, at all.

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    I think Baghdadi's confirmed death (none / 0) (#8)
    by Militarytracy on Tue Apr 28, 2015 at 03:57:43 PM EST
    Takes a lot of wind out of ISIS sails.  They aren't the only jihad in town.  The only thing distinctive  they had was a supposed caliphate.

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    Great line: (none / 0) (#11)
    by Mr Natural on Tue Apr 28, 2015 at 09:17:04 PM EST
    They aren't the only jihad in town.

    Unfortunately.

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    You may be right, Tracy (5.00 / 1) (#4)
    by NYShooter on Mon Apr 27, 2015 at 10:51:49 AM EST
    But, if Viet Nam was any kind of lesson, it could go either way. It all depends on what kind of structure is in place. In Nam, when a warlord was taken out, sometimes that unit collapsed. Other times, depending on how ambitious, smart, and/or experienced the second in commands were the unit didn't degrade too much. On some occasions, when a chief was removed, the younger officers made up in viciousness what they lacked in organizational skills.

    These ISIS characters, from what I've seen, spend a lot of time researching whatever target (city/town/province) they're planning to attack, to be sure there's an infrastructure in place should they be victorious. And, it looks like they planned very thoroughly what form their hoped for expansion would take. Bottom line is that they've decided to go with a completely decentralized formation. Again, very smart on their part.

    Anyway, I didn't mean to go into this too much. It's just that I think the odds of a breakdown in ISIS'S effectiveness is just 50/50 if Baghdadi is out of the picture.

    p.s. Since I've gone this far I might as well go a little farther. The key to defeating ISIS is definitely not in a military shootout. Like I said, ISIS is decentralized, and plans to fight in, more or less, an asymmetric, guerrilla style of warfare. As we know from history, regardless of how much bigger, and powerful, one side is over the other, that style of warfare takes a long, long time to be defeated. This is what Lincoln and Grant feared the most as the Civil War was coming close to the end. Some military experts estimate that the South could have held out in some fashion for several years if Lee had decided to go that route.

    The key to defeating ISIS is MONEY; cut off the supply for a specific period of time, and they're finished. Decentralization has been very successful for them so far. But, decentralization also means they have many, many semi-autonomous units, each with a lieutenant who's (relatively) highly paid, and, probably very ambitious. ISIS has a pretty sophisticated financial, incentive/reward system for these guys. If their cash flow is interrupted for any length of time you can expect a lot of these guys to become disgruntled, and, disillusioned, pretty quickly. They've been indoctrinated to expect a reward based career, and not so much an ideological one. That's one of the main reasons they've been able to recruit so many officers from so many different countries: Iraq, Syria, Libya, and outside the M.E.

    Anyway, ISIS has surprised everyone ever since they came onto the scene, I think they'll continue surprising.

    They're expansion has come to (none / 0) (#9)
    by Militarytracy on Tue Apr 28, 2015 at 04:01:00 PM EST
    A grinding halt.  People in the region are fighting back now.  Things didn't go so well for them in Ramadi. An orchestrated car bomb attack completely bombed out.  No car bomb reached its target.  They've been infiltrated, and Intel collection on them is much better than it was a year ago.

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    You hit the nail on the head, (none / 0) (#10)
    by NYShooter on Tue Apr 28, 2015 at 09:16:26 PM EST
    "People in the region are fighting back now."

    And, that's exactly what it will take to wipe them out for good.

    My point was that ISIS's strategy was to split up into many mini-units, so that one large, powerful force couldn't defeat them. If, as you say, people in the region are fighting back, and doing well, that will become contagious, spread, and could spell the "end of days" for those punks.

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    I'll Bag Daddy (none / 0) (#2)
    by Dadler on Mon Apr 27, 2015 at 10:29:42 AM EST
    I'll bet that chant would get some mileage now over in drone pilotville.

    Which both tickles me... (none / 0) (#3)
    by Dadler on Mon Apr 27, 2015 at 10:30:39 AM EST
    ...and horrifies me at the same time.

    Having an overly sensitive soul sucks. Not always, but still...

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