Jihadist responsible for Daesh "education and justice" arrested in Turkey

A new blow against jihadism. The Turkish government has announced the arrest of Bashar Khattab Ghazal Al-Sumaidai, head of Daesh's "education and justice" department, in Istanbul. According to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the arrested jihadist is one of the "most responsible members of the organisation" and is said to have been living "in Syria and Turkey".

During his interrogation by the Turkish police, al-Sumaidai confessed that he was responsible for providing education and justice within the Daesh structure during its attempt to form a caliphate during the Syrian civil war and after it was overthrown. For the time being, the detainee has been handed over to the Turkish judiciary after being interrogated by both police and intelligence services. 

Al-Sumaidai joined the ranks of Daesh in 2013 when the remnants of Ansar al-Islam (AAI) in Iraq, a terrorist organisation of which he was also a member, moved to Syria and Daesh began to occupy the Syrian territories that rose up against the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad during the Arab Spring.

In this context, al-Sumaidai managed to rise quickly through the ranks of Daesh to become an indoctrinator of jihadists in Mosul, where he managed to get close to the organisation's then leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.  In 2014, he appointed al-Sumaidai as Daesh's chief judge in Nineveh, Iraq, executing murder-related cases.

In 2016, at a time when he was still performing functions as a 'qadi al dam', i.e. specialising as a 'judge' in assassination and capital cases, he managed to become a member of the terrorist organisation's executive body and continued to work to further occupy territories and expand the caliphate. A year later, in 2017, when Daesh was beginning to lose territory, al-Sumaidai reportedly managed to leave Syria for southern Turkey. 

In 2021, some sources said that the jihadist was able to return to Syria to revitalise the group and regain support. Thus, al-Sumaidai managed to stay close to the organisation's leadership, working closely with Baghdadi's successor, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi, who was also in Turkey. 

After Quraishi's death following a drone strike in February this year, al-Sumaidai was a leading candidate to lead the organisation because of his supposed 'lineage' from Muhammad, as well as his relationship with the two previous leaders.