WThis is a list of current and former members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or also known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and its previous incarnations, including operating as a branch of al-Qaeda known as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), from 2004–2006. Little is known about the leadership or members, as most use assumed names and many fight or appear in video with covered faces. Most of its members are former officers and soldiers of Saddam Hussein's regime after its collapse in 2003.
WSalah Abdeslam is a Belgium-born French national. He is suspected of being the only surviving member of the group directly involved in the attacks in Paris on 13 November 2015 through providing logistical support for the assailants, driving them to their target locations, and having some involvement in the manufacture of the explosives used.
WAhmad Abousamra, known also as Abu Sulayman ash-Shami and Abu Maysarah ash-Shami, was a Syrian-American Islamic militant and ideologue who served as the chief editor of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's Dabiq magazine. In 2013, he was placed on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation's 'most wanted list' and made the subject of a $50,000 reward because of his connections to a Massachusetts terrorism investigation centering on his alleged close associate Tarek Mehanna, who was arrested in 2009 and convicted of terrorism-related charges in a Boston court in late 2011. He was featured on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list for allegedly attempting to obtain military training in his trips to Yemen and Pakistan for the purpose of killing American soldiers overseas.
WYamin Abou-Zand, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Umar al-Almani, was a prominent German commander of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. He gained notoriety by appearing in the first German ISIL propaganda video in 2015, and went on to fight for the militant organization until 2017, when he was killed in action against the Syrian Democratic Forces.
WIbrahim El Bakraoui was a Belgian-Moroccan terrorist, confirmed to be one of the suicide bombers at the Brussels Airport in the 2016 Brussels bombings.
WAkhmed Chatayev was a Chechen Islamist, terrorist, and Islamic State leader who is thought to have been the planner of the 2016 Istanbul airport attack. He was killed in a shootout with Georgian security forces in Tbilisi on 22 November 2017.
WDenis Mamadou Gerhard Cuspert, also known by his stage name Deso Dogg and his nom de guerre Abu Talha al-Almani, was a German rapper who became a member of Islamic State.
WOn 24 July 2016, fifteen people were injured, four seriously, in a suicide bombing outside a wine bar in Ansbach, Bavaria, Germany. The bomber, identified as Mohammad Daleel, was a 27-year-old Syrian refugee who had pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State. He was the only fatality in the incident. According to German authorities, Daleel was in contact with the Islamic State and had been planning more attacks before his backpack bomb exploded accidentally.
WFaysal Ali Warabe, also spelled Faisal Ali Warabe, is a Somali engineer and politician. He previously served as Director of Planning and Building as well as Regional Director of Somalia's Ministry of Public Works. Additionally, Warabe is the founder and Chairman of the For Justice and Development (UCID) political party.
WIsnilon Totoni Hapilon, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Abdullah al-Filipini, was a Moro Islamist militant affiliated with ISIS.
WRaphael Hostey, also known as Abu Qaqa, was a British Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant recruiter and fighter from Manchester.
WOn 3 April 2017, a terrorist attack using an explosive device took place on the Saint Petersburg Metro between Sennaya Ploshchad and Tekhnologichesky Institut stations. Seven people were initially reported to have died, and eight more died later from their injuries, bringing the total to 15.
WMohammed Emwazi was a British-Kuwaiti militiant believed to be the person seen in several videos produced by the Islamist extremist group ISIL showing the beheadings of a number of captives in 2014 and 2015. A group of his hostages nicknamed him "John" since he was part of a four-person terrorist cell with English accents whom they called "The Beatles"; the press later began calling him "Jihadi John".
WOn 26 July 2016, two Islamist terrorists attacked participants in a Mass at a Catholic church in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, Normandy, northern France. Wielding knives and wearing fake explosive belts, the men took six people captive and later killed one of them, 85-year-old priest Jacques Hamel, by slitting his throat, and also critically wounded an 86-year-old man. The terrorists were shot dead by BRI police as they tried to leave the church.
WHafiz Saeed Khan was an Islamic militant who served as the Islamic State emir for its Khorasan province, which is active in Afghanistan and Pakistan, from January 2015 until his death in July 2016. Prior to 2015, Khan was a senior commander in the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan and initially a member of the Afghan Taliban.
WNajm al-'Ashrāwī, also known as Abū Idrīs al-Baljīkī or Soufiane Kayal, was a Belgian-Moroccan Islamic militant loyal to the Islamic State and was one of two suicide bombers at the Brussels Airport in the 2016 Brussels bombings. The Islamic State confirmed that he was responsible for making all the explosives used in the November 2015 Paris attacks.
WAt 01:15 am local time on 1 January 2017 a gunman shot and killed 39 people and wounded 79 others at the Reina nightclub in the Ortaköy neighbourhood of Istanbul, Turkey, where hundreds had been celebrating New Year's Day. Uzbekistan-born Abdulkadir Masharipov was arrested in Istanbul on 17 January 2017. Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed credit for his actions. The first hearing in the trial of Masharipov and 51 accused accomplices was held on 11 December 2017, and the next hearing was held on 26 March 2018.
WOmar Mir Seddique, also known as Omar Mateen, was an American mass murderer and domestic terrorist who killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in a mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on June 12, 2016, before he was killed in a shootout with the local police. It was the deadliest shooting by a single shooter in United States history until the Las Vegas Strip shooting on October 1, 2017.
WLavdrim Muhaxheri, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Abdullah al Kosova, was a Kosovo Albanian Islamic State (IS) leader and recruiter of ethnic Albanian jihadi foreign fighters fighting in Syria and in Iraq. A former KFOR and NATO employee, he became an extremist and left for Syria in late 2012. He has appeared in several propaganda videos, calling Albanians to join jihad, and has uploaded photographs of himself appearing to decapitate a man, as well as a video where he kills a captive with a rocket. On 24 September 2014, the U.S. Department of State designated Muhaxheri as a global terrorist.
WMufti Nemat, also known as Mufti Nematullah Qaweem or Mullah Nemat Mufti, is an Afghan militant and Salafist cleric who served as a field commander for the Taliban and later the Islamic State's Khorasan Province (ISIL-K) in northern Afghanistan, particularly Jowzjan Province. While waging an insurgency against the Afghan government, he has been accused of committing several war crimes.
WOn the afternoon of 24 May 2014, a gunman opened fire at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, killing four people. Three of them, an Israeli couple on holiday and a French woman, died at the scene. The fourth victim, a Belgian employee of the museum, was taken to the hospital but died of his injuries on 6 June. A little less than a week later, on 30 May 2014, a suspect was arrested in the French city of Marseille in connection with the shooting. The suspect was Mehdi Nemmouche, a 29-year-old French national of Algerian origin. A second suspect, Nacer Bendrer, was identified and arrested later.
WAbu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi is an Iraqi Islamist who is the second and current leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. According to January 2020 press reports, his true identity is Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli al-Salbi. His appointment by a shura council was announced by ISIL media on 31 October 2019, less than a week after the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The U.S. Rewards for Justice Program is offering up to $10 million in exchange for information leading to al-Qurashi's apprehension.
WLehbib Ould Ali Ould Said Ould Yumani, known as Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, is a Sahrawi Islamic militant and leader of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara.
WA terrorist attack took place on 26 June 2015 in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, near Lyon, France, when a Muslim man, Yassin Salhi, decapitated his employer Hervé Cornara and drove his van into gas cylinders at a gas factory in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier near Lyon, France, which caused an explosion that injured two other people. Salhi was arrested and charged with murder and attempted murder linked to terrorism. Three other people were questioned by the police but released without charge. Salhi committed suicide in jail in December.
WSheikh Maqbool, known as Shahidullah Shahid, was a Pakistani Islamic militant who served in senior roles in both the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan and in the Islamic State's province in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
WSantoso, known as Abu Wardah, was an Indonesian Islamic militant and the leader of Mujahidin Indonesia Timur (MIT). He pledged allegiance to ISIL in July 2014. He was killed on 18 July 2016 by the Indonesian police after two years of hiding in the jungles near Poso, Sulawesi.
WZainuri Kamaruddin, also known by his nom de guerre Abu Talhah, was a prominent Malaysian Islamist militant who fought as commander for Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia and later the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's Katibah Nusantara. In May 2016, Zainuri was declared "public enemy No 1" by Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia Ahmad Zahid Hamidi due to his skills in the construction of improvised explosive devices. He was killed by an airstrike on Raqqa during Operation Wrath of Euphrates.
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