The next ISIS leader? Terror monster who demanded murder of Brits tipped to take over

Abu Mohammed al-Adnani has led calls for terror attacks in the West

WHILE the world awaits proof that the dreaded leader of ISIS is dead, a new fighter is preparing to take his place and he’s truly evil.

ISIS spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani demands lone wolf terror attacks in the West

Abu Mohammad al-Adnani is hotly tipped to be next in line for leadership and has pledged that the bloodshed will continue unabated. He was the first ISIS chief to call for jihadis to commit murders in the West and has urged a month of attacks for Ramadan.

Al-Adnani has inspired terror attacks across the world

Now with unverified reports suggesting current leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead, he could be about to take the reins. Security analyst Kyle Orton said al-Adnani was the “most senior and visible figure” in line for leadership.

ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, left, and potential successor Abu Mohammed al-Adnani

And with ISIS being attacked on multiple fronts, Mr Orton said that a change in leadership might even be welcomed. He told Daily Star Online: “If Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is killed – not immediately – that is almost the best scenario for IS now.


“If Abu Bakr is killed as the caliphate goes down then it leaves a clean slate for the group to start again.
“If Abu Bakr is left as a caliph without a caliphate, as professor Craig Whiteside recently put it, then he has some explaining to do.”

In his most recent speech, al-Adnani openly mocked the idea that ISIS would crumble without its current leader. He wrote: “Do you think, O America, that victory is by killing one leader or another? Indeed, it would then be a falsified victory.

“Were you victorious when you killed Abu Mus’ab, Abu Hamzah, Abu ‘Umar, or Usamah? No. Indeed, victory is the defeat of one’s opponent. “Or do you, O America, consider defeat to be the loss of a city of the loss of land? Were we defeated when we lost the cities in Iraq and were in the desert without any city or land?"

Mr Orton said al-Adnani was a "true believer in the most hardcore sense" and would likely be no better than Baghdadi. There would be other contenders, he said, as there was after the death of the leader of ISI – the predecessor to Islamic State.

But he said the terror group was a "a mature organisation" that could "mobilise its ruthless internal security apparatus to put down these challengers." "It's not solely personal but institutional, and even once denied urban strongholds, many of those chains of command are likely to hold," he added.

Reports started circulating earlier this week that current ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in an airstrike. Yet with the story being attributed to pro-government Turkish paper Yeni Şafak, many analysts have cast doubt on the claims.

Nonetheless, the group is fighting for survival and is currently battling for control of a number of its strongholds. Among them are Sirte, an ISIS-controlled city in Libya, and Fallujah in Iraq, where government forces claim to have won the battle.