The Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, which had established a regime of terror in Iraq and Syria before being defeated, announced on Wednesday the death of its leader, killed in action, and the appointment of a successor.
In an audio message, the group’s spokesman announced that Abu Hassan al-Hachimi al-Qurachi, an Iraqi, had been killed “while fighting the enemies of God”, without further details on the place, the date or the circumstances of his death.
The spokesman added that a new “caliph of Muslims”, Abu Al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurachi, had been appointed. This is the fourth head of the jihadist organization, the three previous ones having been killed.
He also gave no indication of the new leader of the group, who has the same last name as his predecessor. Al-Qurachi refers to the tribe of the Prophet Muhammad, from whom the self-proclaimed “caliph” must be a descendant.
According to the spokesperson, the new “caliph” is among the “former mujahideen” (fighters of the faith) of the group.
After a meteoric rise in power in 2014 in Iraq and Syria, and the conquest of vast territories, the IS saw its self-proclaimed “caliphate” overthrown under the blow of successive offensives in these two countries, respectively in 2017 and 2019. .
But despite losing its strongholds in Syria and Iraq, the group continues to claim responsibility for attacks in those two countries through sleeper cells.
The organization has also extended its influence to other regions of the world such as the Sahel region, Nigeria, Yemen and Afghanistan, where it regularly claims responsibility for attacks.
Thousands of prisoners
Thousands of suspected jihadists captured in the group’s defeat are being held in Iraq and Syria.
The jihadist group had established a regime of terror in the regions under its control in Syria and Iraq, imposing strict application of Islamic law and carrying out numerous abuses, some of which were staged in unbearable videos, which have become a weapon. of propaganda.
He had persecuted minorities including the Yazidis in Iraq, the UN accusing him of “genocide” against them.
In a tweet, Hassan Hassan, a specialist in jihadist movements, estimated that the leader of the IS “could have been killed accidentally during a raid or fighting without those who killed him (the Americans, the Iraqis or the Kurds) know that they have eliminated him”.
A second scenario would be that the information is false, according to Mr. Hassan, editor of the New Lines Magazine in the USA.
ISIS’s first leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi al-Qurachi, was killed in a 2019 US raid in Syria and his successor, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurachi, was eliminated last February in a an operation of American special forces in the northwest of the country.
The United States continued to target the organization’s second-tier leaders thereafter. In July, they announced that they had killed the leader of the IS group for Syria in a drone strike in the northwest of the country.