Abdul Qader al-Najdi, also known as Abu Muaz al-Tikriti, was an
Iraqi Islamic militant and the leader of the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Libya
The Islamic State is a militant Islamist group active in Libya under three branches: Fezzan Province ( ar, ولاية فزان, ''Wilayah Fizan'') in the desert south, Cyrenaica Province ( ar, ولاية برقة, ''Wilayah Barqah'') in the east, ...
. He was possibly killed in September 2020.
History
He is sometimes confused as being Saudi Arabian due to the 'al-Najdi' in his name (Najd being a region of Saudi Arabia), but he was an Iraqi from the city of
Tikrit
Tikrit ( ar, تِكْرِيت ''Tikrīt'' , Syriac: ܬܲܓܪܝܼܬܼ ''Tagrīṯ'') is a city in Iraq, located northwest of Baghdad and southeast of Mosul on the Tigris River. It is the administrative center of the Saladin Governorate. , it h ...
as indicated by his
surname. He is not to be confused with Abu Habib al-Jazrawi, a deceased Saudi IS leader in Libya.
He replaced
Abu Nabil al-Anbari
Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al-Zubaydi, better known by his noms de guerre Abu Nabil al-Anbari ( ar, أبو نبيل الأنباري, ʾAbū Nabīl al-ʾAnbārī), Abul Mughirah al-Qahtani ( ar, أبو المغيرة القحطاني, ʾAbū al-Mughīrah ...
who was killed in November 2015. His appointment was announced in the IS newsletter al-Naba in March 2016.
The
Libyan National Army
The Libyan National Army (LNA; ar, الجيش الوطني الليبي, ''al-jaysh al-waṭaniyy al-Lībii'') is a component of Libya's military forces which were nominally a unified national force under the command of Field Marshal Khalifa ...
(LNA) reported in September 2020 that during a raid in
Sebha, it had killed the man who had led the Libyan branch of ISIS since 2015 who they identified as Abu Moaz al-Iraqi, also known as Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi.
Eastern Libyan forces say they killed Islamic State leader
Reuters, September 23, 2020
References
{{reflist
2020 deaths
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Libya
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant members from Iraq
Leaders of Islamic terror groups
Year of birth missing