ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

In a ground mission in eastern Syria last weekend, US special forces killed Abu Sayyaf, a man they described as playing a key role in Islamic State's oil and gas operations. The American commandos were quickly engaged in a firefight, during which Abu Sayyaf was killed. But their original goal was to capture and interrogate him, apparently in an effort to improve their understanding of how IS works. It raised the question of how much is known about the structure of an organisation that rapidly overran large parts of Syria and Iraq last year, and has been able to hold onto much of that territory despite months of air strikes by a US-led coalition. On a broad level the shape of Islamic State may seem fairly clear. Islamic State has seized large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq There are conflicting reports about the fate of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Its stated goal has been to establish a "caliphate" to rule over the entire Muslim world, under a single leader and in line w