Like al-Baghdadi before him, the new leader was approved by a shura, or governing council, implying the ISIS hierarchy and bureaucracy remains operational. already knows the identity of the new leader. Trump claimed on Friday morning that the U.S. Some analysts suggest al-Hashimi could be Abdullah’s nom de guerre. The day before ISIS released its recording, National Counterterrorism Center director Russ Travers suggested the name of Hajji Abdullah as a potential successor to al-Baghdadi. ISIS officials often change names when their role or rank shifts, one expert notes. Still, that’s not prevented speculation as to the new leader’s identity. “I don’t foresee a video message, audio message, or anything that is in any way revealing.” “Any successor that is already known to the world would start his rule with a major security vulnerability,” Katz told TIME on October 30.

The audio recording described the new leader as a “prominent figure in jihad.”īut the lack of identifying biographical details should come as no surprise, says Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks online networks affiliated with jihadist and white supremacist organizations. “Nobody - and I mean nobody outside a likely very small circle within ISIS - have any idea who their new leader “Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi” is,” Paul Cruickshank of the Combating Terrorism Center, wrote on Twitter shortly after the militant group made the leader’s name public. What do we know about al-Baghdadi’s successor?Īlmost nothing. to “beware vengeance” for al-Baghdadi’s death, swiped at Trump’s erratic leadership, and emphasized the group’s global reach. (The previous spokesman was killed in a separate joint U.S.-Kurdish operation hours after the one targeting al-Baghdadi.) In the recording, the new spokesman warned the U.S. In the almost eight-minute-long audio recording posted on messaging service Telegram, ISIS introduced its new spokesman as Abu Hamza al-Qurashi-connecting him too with the Prophet’s lineage.

ISIS’s statement on Thursday gave no indication of what he looks like, how he sounds, or his precise role in the group before it designated him “caliph” and “emir of the believers.” (A caliph is a spiritual leader of Islam who claims succession from the Prophet Muhammad.) 26, the terror group has named its new leader: Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi.īut besides a name that implies the new leader is a descendant of the Quraysh tribe of the Prophet Muhammad, we know little about him.

special forces operation in northwest Syria on Oct. Days after President Trump announced the death of the self-proclaimed leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, during a U.S.

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