When the walls closed in on the reclusive ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi last Saturday night, and he ran into a tunnel under his hideout, it felt only fitting that he should meet his end below ground.
In the absence of a prominent personality, what’s left is ideology. ISIS is considered the most extreme group in the jihadist universe but its basic ideology is only marginally different from al Qaeda’s, though that difference was important enough to precipitate a split between the two in 2014. With the ISIS caliphate in ruins, the ideological space between the two groups has narrowed. Signs of ISIS fighters returning to areas in Syria, where al Qaeda-affiliated groups still operate, have been emerging for months. In February, during a brief ceasefire in Baghouz village, where ISIS made its last stand, one solution proposed by ISIS to end the fighting was safe passage for its 300 or so fighters to Idlib, home to Hurras al Din, a group that has pledged allegiance to al Qaeda.
The nightmare scenario, terrorism experts say, is a world in which al Qaeda and ISIS affiliates, from the Middle East to Southeast Asia, start cooperating and sharing resources, including the tens of millions of dollars ISIS reportedly has squirreled away. But some kind of cooperation between these groups is inevitable. ISIS has lost much of its sheen. Many of its fighters, foreigners in particular who feel betrayed after ISIS commanders abandoned them in the dying days of the caliphate, have not lost any of their jihadi verve and will be looking for another group to join.
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