evidence: The head of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may be dead. ISIS, however, is far from finished. It operates in West Africa, Libya, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, Afghanistan and the Philippines, and has followers in Europe and elsewhere. That in addition to, according to a report issued by the Pentagon’s Inspector General in August, between 14,000 and 18,000 fighters between Syria and Iraq. Baghdadi was a secretive leader, making only one public appearance, in July 2014, when he delivered a sermon in Mosul’s Grand Mosque. During the years when ISIS’ fortune turned, when the group lost control of the cities of Tikrit, Falluja, Ramadi and Mosul in Iraq, and eventually its de facto capital in Syria in autumn 2017, he remained silent. It was only after the fall of ISIS’ last stronghold in eastern Syria did he finally release an audio statement. Among the dozens of ISIS fighters and their wives and children we interviewed this spring during the battle of Baghouz, the group’s last stronghold, few mentioned the name of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The diehards, the ones who still remained loyal to the ideology of ISIS, stressed their allegiance to ad-Dawla al-Islamiya – the Islamic State, not to its leader.