Abdullah Qardash

Al-Haj Abdullah Qardash (Arabic: عبد الله قرداش‎) (sometimes spelled Karshesh, also known as Hajji Abdullah al-Afari), also nicknamed "The Professor" and "Destroyer", is or was an Iraqi-born militant Islamist who in 2019 was wrongly reported as the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) following the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghadi. His role within ISIL is unclear and there are reports that Qardash may have died in 2017.

Biography
Qardash is an Iraqi Turkman and was born in Tal Afar, Iraq. He studied in the Islamic Sciences college in Mosul. As of 2014, Qardash was in his mid-50s.

Prior to joining ISIL, Qardash was a Major General within the army of Saddam Hussein. Qardash was jailed in 2003–2004 by the US authorities with al-Baghdadi in Camp Bucca, a detention facility in Basra, following the invasion of Iraq and the ouster of Saddam Hussein's regime, becoming one of al-Baghdadi's closest companions. During the International military intervention against ISIL, Qardash oversaw operations against the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo and the Syrian Arab Army in Deir ez-Zor. Qardash also personally oversaw the selection of suicide bombers and the conduct of suicide operations for the Islamic State.

Qardash was earlier a religious commissar in al-Qaeda before joining the Islamic State.

Qardash was believed by some to have assumed the position on 27 October 2019 following the death of ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the Barisha raid conducted by the United States Army in northwest Syria. This claim was based on a statement in August 2019 which was attributed to ISIL's propaganda arm, the Amaq News Agency, and claimed that Qardash had been named as al-Baghdadi's successor. Several news organizations reported the statement as an official announcement.

Analysts, however, dismissed the statement as a fabrication. Rita Katz, a terrorism analyst and the co-founder of SITE Intelligence, noted that the statement used a different font when compared to other statements and it was never distributed on Amaq or ISIL channels. The fake statement re-emerged in October 2019 following the death of al-Baghdadi, and was reported on by several news organizations, including Newsweek. A few days later, on 31 October, ISIL named Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi as Baghdadi's successor.

Hisham al-Hashimi, an ISIL analyst and counter-terrorism advisor to the Iraqi government, said in October 2019 that, according to Iraqi intelligence sources, Qardash had died in 2017 and his daughter was being held by Iraqi intelligence. He said Qardash's death had been confirmed by both his daughter and other relatives. As of 31 October, his death has not been confirmed by other sources.