Shifa Al-Nima aka Abu Abdul Bari, the ‘morbidly obese’ Islamic State(ISIS) preacher who often advocated enslavement, rape, torture and ethnic cleansing, was captured last Thursday (Jan 16) in a raid conducted by an elite Iraqi SWAT team of the Nineveh regiment in the city of Mosul.
Al-Nima, who reportedely weighs 254 kg, had to be loaded onto a flatbed truck because he couldn’t fit in a police car.
Al-Nima is considered to be one of the biggest captures among the Daesh leadership in recent months, due to his position as the terrorist organisation’s top religious authority in issuing fatwas (religious edicts).
Al-Nima is widely regarded as a key leader of ISIS and wields his authority as the Islamic terror organisation’s foremost religious figure in issuing fatwas (religious edicts).
Al-Nima is known to have issued fatwas ordering the execution of scholars and clerics who refused to pledge allegiance to ISIS when the terror group occupied the Mosul city.
Al-Nima is said to have also ordered the destruction of a mosque built at the site believed to be the burial place of the biblical prophet Jonah.
Maajid Nawaz, founder of the London-based anti-extremism think Quilliam, took to weigh in on the cleric’s arrest
ISIS continue remains a potent threat, in spite of the killing of its self-appointed caliph and leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.