Thread by @AbuJamajem

1. Notes on Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's apparent death in Syria's Idlib province:

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2. Baghdadi's death seems unlikely to have an immediate impact on the group's operations.

U.S. officials told @CrisisGroup they believed the Islamic State's top leadership was issuing broad guidance to the global organization, not day-to-day direction: crisisgroup.org/middle-east-no…

3. The Islamic State's local manifestations in Syria, Iraq and beyond are already in motion. They can remain in motion – more rural extortion and murder in Iraq, motorbike drive-bys in Deir al-Zour, Badiyah desert raiding parties: crisisgroup.org/middle-east-no…

4. Baghdadi's death could matter at the strategic level.

He presided over a period of exceptional success and growth for the Islamic State – even as the group also made some odd choices, chiefly inviting a seemingly suicidal open battle to defend its territorial "caliphate."

5. Yet Baghdadi's personal centrality to the organization's success is unclear, and the group seems to have invested in systematizing and institutionalizing itself in a way that could mitigate the loss of any single leader, even at the very top.

6. The death of the Islamic State's "caliph" may impact the group's sway over its global constituency of supporters, who have amplified its terroristic impact by perpetrating stabbings and ramming attacks the Islamic State could opportunistically claim as its own.

7. See @CrisisGroup's report on the "Islamic State's" Easter attacks in Sri Lanka, which the organization was quick to claim to demonstrate its continued relevance, but about which it had no evident advance knowledge: crisisgroup.org/asia/south-asi…

8. Yet IS's appeal seems not to be personalistic – Baghdadi himself only appeared on video twice. And some of the group's more identifiable figures have loomed nearly as large in death. Audio from former spox Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, for example, still features in its media.

9. The death of the Islamic State's "caliph" could weaken the symbolic legitimacy that helps magnetize the "provinces" of its "caliphate." Yet the group can still offer them the clarity of its ideology and program, and the institutional knowledge it has accumulated over time.

10. In addition to whatever guidance the Islamic State gives its "provinces" in private, we know from the organization's newsletters that it has theorized insurgent tactics and is interested in disseminating that knowledge across the organization:

https://twitter.com/AbuJamajem/status/1126835412746539008

11. The Islamic State's "West Africa" contingent is a main example of a "province" that has become more "Islamic State"-like since affiliating with the transnational organization and is now, within its Lake Chad context, more effective and dangerous: crisisgroup.org/africa/west-af…

12. On Syria's Idlib:

The Islamic State was known to operate clandestinely in Idlib, which is controlled by Syrian rebels hostile to the group. There, the Islamic State has targeted its militant rivals and even attempted to direct external operations: warontherocks.com/2019/05/a-glim…

13. Former Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and Idlib's other armed factions have made seemingly credible efforts to root out the Islamic State locally. But there are lots of dubious people floating around Idlib, from Syria and abroad. crisisgroup.org/middle-east-no…

14. In all: Baghdadi's death is certainly a blow for an Islamic State that has been reduced globally. But IS is also resilient and adaptive.

We still need to avoid giving it new opportunities to reassert itself, in Syria, Iraq and worldwide: crisisgroup.org/middle-east-no…

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