The Islamic State (IS) armed group has confirmed the death of its leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hachimi al-Qurachi, just over a month after the US announced his death, and named his successor, according to a statement released Thursday.
The jihadists of the IS group have “sworn allegiance to Abu Hassan al-Hachimi al-Qurachi, the emir of the believers and caliph of the Muslims,” the group’s spokesman said in an audio recording.
The death of the former leader of the IS organization as well as its previous spokesman are also confirmed in the recording.
« Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurachi and the official spokesman of the Islamic State […] Abu Hamza al-Qurachi were killed recently,” added the new spokesman.
The former leader of the IS group blew himself up during an operation by US special forces in northwestern Syria, an area under the control of jihadists, US President Joe Biden announced on 3 last February.
Qourachi, from Tal Afar, 70 kilometers west of Mosul in Iraq, ended October 2019 as head of the group after the elimination of his predecessor Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi the same month.
The new leader of the radical Sunni organization, the group’s third since its inception, is relatively unknown. He takes the reins of the EI group at a time when it is weakened by successive offensives supported by the United States in Iraq and Syria, to thwart a resurgence of jihadists.
The Syrian Democratic Forces, dominated by the Kurds and supported by the international coalition, defeated the armed organization IS in Syria in 2019 by driving it out of its last stronghold of Baghouz, in the province of Deir Ezzor (east).
But the Islamic State group “maintains a largely clandestine presence in Iraq and Syria and is waging a sustained insurgency on both sides of the border between the two countries”, according to a UN report published last year.
In these two countries, the jihadist organization would retain “a total of 10,000 active fighters”, according to this report.