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Fair questions.

Let me start with the irrelevance point you make.

I mostly agree with that, except this is a Q thread, so it’s extremely wide ranging. I did state in my original comment that it was a “nit”.

Now to the meat of the question.

Yes, because of the ideology of ISIS it matters a LOT if they get Al Bhagdadi.

As an example it mattered to get Saddam, and it mattered to get Osama bin Laden. In both cases we had won the wars, overthrown there government’s they controlled, but invested years and millions of dollars in getting the leaders.

It’s always like that in war, but in the case of Bhagdadi it’s about 10X more-so.

ISIS has made very specific claims, claims that resonate single in the Islamic imagination.

There is an idea among Muslims that there the true leader of unified Islam worldwide is the legitimate heir of the Prophet Mohammed. The Sunni - Shia divide is based on a disagreement about which of the two men who claimed to be the best leader of Islam (a generation after the death of Mohammed) had the legitimate claim.

The Sunni caliphate ended when the Ottaman empire fell after WW1. The last of the Orthodox Sunni Caliphs, the world-wide leader of Islam, was deposed by Ataturk, a secular Army officer.
The great “Uma”, the Islamic lands ruled and united by the Caliph, that stretched from Morroco to Turkey and Iran, fell. It was disassembled by there victorious allies, and replace with a dozen states, all run by secular leaders. Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Saudia Arabia, Libya, Jordan, “Palestine”, Isreal.

Osama bin Laden himself refferred to this as “the great catastrophy”. From the point of vote of an Islamic fundamentalist it was a huge catastrophy.

The direct descendent of the Prophet was deposed, there Islamic State was shattered and divided, and Islam went from the ruling ideology for half a billion people to a mere religion. The ruling ideology of much of the former Islamic world became “Baathism”, a weird authoritarian socialist ideology.

Abu Bakr Al Bhagdadi, after a pretty amazing run of capturing 2/3 of Iraq and 2/3 of Syria in a few months told the Islamic world; we have a new Islamic State, and you have a new Caliph.

This was intoxicating stuff for believing Muslims! And, Bhagdadi had the credentials to make it seem real. He has a PhD in Islamic theology. And, equally important, he’s a direct descendent of Mohammed. And, like Mohammed, he had demonstrated Allah’s favor, by kicking ass in War and capturing historic lands at the heart of the Caliphate.

Osama bin Laden never claimed to be the Caliph, but he worked to bring about a new Caliphate. To many jihadis al Bhagdadi was the fulfillment of Obama’s mission.

Of many Muslims denounced his claim, particularly other political leaders in the Islamic world.

But his claim excited there true believers. When you see ISIS claim atrocity and terrorist attack in places like Paris and Orlando, as we have, it’s based on the terrorists swearing allegiance to The Islamic State and obedience to the Caliph, Ibrahim (aka the man formerly known as Abu Bakr Al Bhagdadi).

He is, literally, the divine inspired descendent of Mohammed, retuned to lead the faithful and unite the Uma, the Islamic people, is a single unified State: the Islamic State.

I wrote all this from memory. If I know this, for sure tens b of millions of Muslims do.

How does the claim that we Caputo’s “the top five” leaders of the Islamic State sound to you now.

As long as Calioh Ibrahim is free the Islamic State mythology will continue.

This is all I was pointing out. Of course it’s fantastic we got 5 top guys, including a close aide. It took a lot of similar small wins to get OBL.

But “top 5” by definition must include the leader. And, unfortunately, this did not. You can be sure 100 million Muslims are chuckling at our claim.

This seemed worth pointing out to people who may not have studied ISIS.