Nasser al-Qardash, a senior ISIS leader newly transferred to Iraqi authority custody will prove to be a “treasure trove” of information on new ISIS strategy for the Iraqi government, security analyst Husham al-Hashimi told Rudaw’s Sangar Abdulrahman on Thursday.
Iraq’s state media reported an Iraqi intelligence announcement of Qardash’s arrest in Wednesday, but Hashimi told Rudaw that the ISIS ringleader surrendered himself to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) after the battle for the last ISIS stronghold of Baghouz, eastern Syria in March 2019. Qardash was held in Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) detention for a year before he was handed to Iraqi forces a few days ago, Hashimi said.
ISIS swept through parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria in the summer of 2014. The extremist militant group, otherwise known by their Arabic acronym Daesh, were declared territorially defeated in Iraq in December 2017, and in March 2019 in Syria, but continue to conduct deadly attacks on security forces and civilians.
