Special to WorldTribune.com

Bill Gertz, Washington Free Beacon

A Chechen jihadist is emerging as a key Islamic State military commander credited with a series of recent military gains in central Iraq that has left the capital of Baghdad increasingly vulnerable to attack.

Abu Umar al Shishani, a former Republic of Georgia soldier turned jihadist, conducted what security analysts are calling brilliant battlefield maneuvers, involving feints and encirclement, that helped the Islamist forces seeking to take over Iraq win key battles against Iraqi government forces and anti-Islamic State militias in recent weeks.

A U.S. counterterrorism official said Shishani is one of the Islamic State’s (IS, also known as ISIL and ISIS) most capable military commanders. “He seems to have a strong following among rank and file fighters and has shown on the battlefield he understands how to blend strategy and tactics,” the official said. “There are multiple ISIL attacks that have his fingerprints all over them.”

Last month, Shishani-led IS forces succeeded in trapping an entire elite Iraqi military unit in central Iraq, and killed up to 300 of its fighters, a major setback for Iraqi government efforts to retake parts of the country controlled by the Islamic State since a June incursion from Syria. … A senior U.S. defense official described the Iraqi army hold on Anbar, a gateway to Baghdad, as “tenuous.”

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  Abu Umar al Shishani, Chechen commander called key to ISIL military strategy that now threatens Baghdad, LIFE, WorldTribune.com