Abdul Haseeb Logari

Abu ‘Umayr ‘Abd al-Hasib al-Logari or Abdul Haseeb Logari was a Pakistani Islamic militant who led the Islamic State – Khorasan Province from July 2016 until his death on 27 April 2017.

Early life
Logari was born in Kurram Agency (today Kurram District), in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA, later incorporated into Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province) and was believed to be in his mid-thirties at the time of his death in 2017.

Logari studied in seminaries in Peshawar, Pakistan controlled by the Salafist jihadist group Jamaat al Dawa al Quran (JDQ) including eight years at the Jamia Imam Bukhari in Sargodha City, Punjab Province, Pakistan. Jamia Imam Bukhari, named after the famous hadith scholar Muhammad al-Bukhari, was run by Haji Inyat ur Rehman, son of JDQ founder, Jamil al-Rahman. Later, Logari studied for four years at Ganj madrassa, in Peshawar, headed by Abu Mohammad Aminullah Peshawari. Both Jamia Imam Bukhari and the Ganj madrassa are sanctioned by the United States for their connection to numerous Islamic terrorist groups including al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e Taiba, and the Afghan Taliban. The U.S. Department of the Treasury described Ganj madrassa in 2013 as "a school in Peshawar that serves as a training center and facilitates funding for al-Qa’ida, Lashkar-e Tayyiba, and the Taliban. The activities of the Ganj Madrassa exemplify how terrorist groups, such as al-Qa’ida, Lashkar-e Tayyiba, and the Taliban, subvert seemingly legitimate institutions, such as religious schools, to divert charitable donations meant for education to support violent acts."

Logari was reportedly fluent in Arabic, Dari, and English in addition to his native Pashto and Urdu.

Islamic militancy
After his studies, Logari left Pakistan for Afghanistan and spent two years as a member of the Afghan Taliban teaching Islamic law, before joining the Islamic State's Khorasan Province (ISIS–K). Logari served as a deputy to ISIS–K's wali, Hafiz Saeed Khan before being appointed as the group's second wali in July 2016 after a US drone strike killed Hafiz Saeed Khan. During Logari's tenure as wali of the Islamic State – Khorasan Province, the group carried out a number of high-profile terrorist attacks. Days before Saeed's death and Logari's succession, the group had orchestrated the deadly bombing of a Hazara (Shia) protest in Kabul, killing 97 and injuring 260, in Kabul's then-deadliest attack since 2001.

Death


On 26 April 2017, 50 American special forces from the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment (United States) and 40 Afghan commandos launched a raid in Mohmand valley, Achin District, Nangarhar Province in an attempt to capture Haseeb at his compound in the area. The firefight lasted three hours, during which two US Rangers were killed, Sgt. Joshua Rodgers, 22, of Bloomington, Illinois, and Sgt. Cameron Thomas, 23 of Kettering, Ohio. A third Ranger was lightly injured.

The US claimed 35 IS fighters were killed along with several high-level leaders, suspected to include Logari, but did not confirm that Logarihad in fact been killed. IS claimed that 100 civilians were killed and injured due to US airstrikes during and after the raid.

On 8 May 2017, the US affirmed Logari had been killed in the raid.