Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was the leader of DA’ISH and responsible for numerous massacres and atrocities. Their heyday seems to be over as they have lost all territory they held in Syria and Iraq. A video posted in early 2019 was the first video of him in five years. The message acknowledged the losses of DA’ISH, and stated that this is expected in a war of attrition. He named a successor – Abdullah Qardash. He died during a US raid in the Idlib Province in October 2019, and his body was buried at sea.