Yesterday (Friday), the Turkish authorities began investigating Bashar Khattab Ghazal Al-Sumaidaie, a prominent leader in ISIS and referred to as the likely leader of the organization.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the arrest of al-Sumaidaie, who is of Iraqi origin, saying that he is one of the most important leaders within the ranks of ISIS, after the killing of the former leader of the organization, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and his successor, Amir Muhammad Abdul Rahman al-Mawla al-Salibi (Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi) in Two US operations in northern Syria in October 2019 and last February, respectively.
Bashar Khattab Ghazal al-Sumaidaie is known by pseudonyms such as “Abu Zaid”, “Professor Zaid”, “Abu Khattab al-Iraqi”, “Haji Zaid al-Iraqi” and “Abu al-Muizz al-Iraqi”.
Yesterday, Erdogan said that the Sumaida’i terrorist had been referred to the judiciary and the necessary decision would be taken against him. According to Turkish security sources, Al-Sumaidaie fell into the hands of the security forces after about 7 months of searching and tracking by the Public Security Directorate and the Security Directorate in Istanbul, where it was possible to locate a house in which he resided in the Sariyer area.
Al-Sumaida’i’s first affiliation goes back to the “Ansar al-Islam” organization formed in northern Iraq since 2001, and made up of Arab and Kurdish fighters who had previous work in Chechnya and Afghanistan. With ISIS taking control of large areas of Iraq and Syria in 2014, Al-Sumaidaie joined ISIS, to be appointed by Al-Baghdadi to the position of “blood judge” in Mosul at a later time.