Islamic State has confirmed the death of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and named Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi as his replacement.
Baghdadi and the terror organisation’s spokesman, Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, were both killed in US operations in northern Syria at the weekend.
The group’s media arm, Amaq, made the announcements in an audio recording released on Thursday.
News of Baghdadi’s successor had been widely anticipated among the ranks of the terror organisation following the weekend raid that traced Baghdadi to a remote corner of northern Syria after a hunt spanning more than half a decade.
Little is known about al-Hashimi, although his last name (al-Qurayshi) suggests that he, as did Baghdadi, claims a lineage to the Prophet Muhammad, a position that offered legitimacy in some quarters.
The recording offers no information about the new leader, whose name was not among those mooted in the days since the US raid. It calls on supporters to follow Baghdadi’s directives and threatens western countries.
“America, don’t you realise that the Islamic State is now at the forefront of Europe and West Africa? It is extended from the East to the West,” it says.
“Don’t you see that you have become a laughing stock to the world? Your destiny is controlled by an old fool who goes to sleep with one opinion and wakes up with another. Do not celebrate or get arrogant.”
Baghdadi’s death in northern Syria, a long way from where it all began for the Islamic State and its forerunners in the deserts of Iraq, was the latest in a series of blows for the group. It has been stripped of all the land it once held and has lost nearly all its founding leaders after more than five years of war.
The direction of the organisation is now largely up to a new generation of leaders, who must determine whether to pursue the goals set out by Baghdadi, or set a new course. Central to the debate is whether to continue with the insurgency that made it such a lethal presence in the region, or to boost affiliates elsewhere in the world. Groups had pledged fealty to Isis in recent years as as the terror group grew in influence.
Isis’s capacity to launch spectacular terror attacks in Europe and beyond is thought to have been diminished by the gruelling war that drastically eroded its ranks and leadership.
While so-called lone-wolf attacks remain a constant threat, European intelligence agencies believe that efforts to disrupt the Isis’s capability to launch sophisticated attacks have been largely successful.
Isis’s watertight secrecy and aversion to digital technology has made it difficult to penetrate. But Baghdadi’s demise was thought to have been brought about by at least one source from within his inner circle – a development that will alarm the new crop of Isis leaders. Kurds in Syria, and Iraqi intelligence officials, had learned of Baghdadi’s whereabouts after cultivating human sources over many months. That led to the discovery of Baghdadi’s hideout in the unlikely location of Idlib.