By Pamela Engel
The death of the ISIS leader who oversaw external attacks could
have significant implications for the group as it pivots from
seizing territory in the Middle East to launching attacks on
Western targets.
The terrorist group announced
on Tuesday that its spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, had
been killed near Aleppo, Syria. His apparent loss marks a major
blow to a group that’s already struggling for long-term survival.
“This really sends the message out that ISIS is truly on the
decline because he was such a figurehead,” Clint Watts, a fellow
at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and former US Army
officer and FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force special agent, told
Business Insider. “[A]dnani was such a key person for building
support, propaganda, and online recruitment. He was a key
figure.”
Adnani’s death could hurt the group’s attack capability in the
long term, Watts said. And it’s unclear whether ISIS has a
successor in line to take over Adnani’s role in the group.
Colin P. Clarke, a terrorism expert and political scientist at
the RAND Corp., speculated that it won’t be easy finding a
replacement for Adnani.
“Replacing Adnani will be hard,” Clarke tweeted.
“He had logistical/comms expertise which isn’t easily replicated
but learned through tacit knowledge transfer.”
Clarke called Adnani’s death “a severe blow to the group’s
external-operations network.”
Bridget Moreng, an analyst who studies ISIS’s global
strategy, noted
that in addition to leading external operations, Adnani was
thought to be the next in line to lead ISIS in the event of
“caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death.
And because it’s not clear who might be taking over Adnani’s job,
there could be some infighting that would further fracture the
group.
“Key question is how IS will adjust to Adnani’s death: smooth
succession or power vacuum/infighting for position,” Moreng
tweeted.
“The latter is likely.”
But terrorist groups like ISIS are generally equipped to survive
the deaths of top leaders. Al Qaeda, for instance, is still a
major player in the world of terrorism despite the death of its
founder, Osama bin Laden.
“These leadership strikes, they’re important,” Thomas Joscelyn, a
senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and an
expert on terrorist groups, told Business Insider. “Killing top
leaders definitely weakens the organization. But a lot of the
time, they have people to replace them that nobody knew about.”
Al Qaeda “has replaced its external operations chief over and
over again,” Joscelyn said.
“The loss of leadership definitely weakens organizations, and it
may lead to a further degradation of ISIS’s capabilities, but
we’ve seen them adapt and survive in the past,” he said.
“These organizations aren’t built around one or two guys. They
have a deep bench of leadership.”
ISIS also has plenty of lower-ranking operatives responsible for
coordinating external attacks.
“A lot of times the middle managers are the ones who make things
happen,” Joscelyn said. They “have people who have detailed local
knowledge who they rely on for tactical planning in operations in
the West.”
Still, ISIS has recruited its base of support around its message
of “remaining and expanding,” not simply surviving. And Adnani’s
death could hurt morale within the group as it continues to lose
territory in Iraq and Syria. ISIS might try to execute more plots
against the West to head off any drop in morale or perception
that the group is being defeated.
“What you may see is an actual increase in attacks,” Watts said.
“Whoever [Adnani’s] successor is may want to be more aggressive.
If there’s any in the pipeline, they might be accelerated by
Adnani’s death.”
Past the short term, however, Adnani’s death might not inspire
many future attacks. Unlike Anwar al-Awlaki, the notorious
preacher and Al Qaeda recruiter, Adnani didn’t speak English or
build up a library of speeches online that supporters — or
curious individuals — could access.
“When you think about it, who will be talking about Adnani in two
years?” Watts wondered. “I don’t know.
