The would-be “caliph” is gone. But Islamic State lives on
AS ITS so-called caliphate expanded across large parts of Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State jihadist group promised its followers an apocalyptic battle to come, a victory over the “crusader armies” that would usher in the day of judgment and birth a new world. The man who was to lead that battle, the self-proclaimed caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, instead blew himself up ingloriously in a tunnel in Syria on October 26th, killing three of his children as well.
In 2014, as his group routed the Iraqi army and swept through much of the country’s Sunni-majority north and west, Mr Baghdadi climbed the pulpit of a mosque in Mosul to declare a caliphate. Thousands of supporters from around the world flocked to join an orgy of violence. Prisoners were beheaded, burned alive and crucified. Women were kept as sex slaves. Civilians under the group’s rule could disappear into its torture chambers for smoking or shaving their beards.
Mr Trump’s press conference left unanswered questions. One is how and why Mr Baghdadi wound up in Idlib. The journey from the east of Syria, where IS held sway, would require crossing either regime-held territory or a stretch of land ringed with Turkish observation posts—difficult, but not impossible for a man with means. Once there, though, Mr Baghdadi would have been in hostile territory. Idlib is largely controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham , al-Qaeda’s onetime Syrian affiliate.
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