The Islamic State announced the death of their leader; Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi in an audio message on 30th November. The groups announced that the Caliph was killed while fighting the enemies of God and offered no further details of his death. Al-Hashimi is the second leader to be killed this year.
ISIS also announce a new leader who is just identified by his nom de guerre, Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi, but gave no details on him either. He is also an Al-Qurashi a name that signifies an ancestral commonality with the tribe of the Prophet Mohammed, which is a pre-requisite for the role of “caliph”.
Since the death of Baghdadi, IS has deliberately avoided the exposure of their leaders to the media which they claim is for security reasons. Analysts however view it as a PsyOps move seeing as the death of Baghdadi greatly impacted the strength of the group and the successors are killed too often.
Various Islamic State provinces across the globe rushed to pledge fealty to the new leader with photosets with ISWAP in Nigeria being the first. Other provinces in Africa including Somalia, DRC, and the Sahel quickly followed. It is important to note that vigilance ought to be observed seeing as the announcement of a new leader is promptly followed by a violent campaign to avenge the fallen leader.
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