ISIS Names New Leader and Confirms al-Baghdadi’s Death
Category: News & Politics
Via: sister-mary-agnes-ample-bottom • 5 years ago • 42 commentsBy: Rukmini Callimachi and Karam Shoumali
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Days after the Islamic State’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and his heir apparent were killed in back-to-back attacks by United States forces in northern Syria, the group broke its silence on Thursday to confirm their deaths, announce a new leader and warn America: “Do not be happy.”
In an audio recording uploaded on the Telegram app, the Islamic State mourned the loss of Mr. al-Baghdadi, who led the organization for nearly a decade, and its spokesman, Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, who was killed a day after Mr. al-Baghdadi and who had widely been considered a potential successor.
The audio recording was the first word from the Islamic State confirming the death of its leader, which President Trump triumphantly announced on Sunday as a huge blow to the world’s most fearsome terrorist group.
Mr. Trump and Pentagon officials said Mr. al-Baghdadi had blown himself up with a suicide vest, also killing two children, after he had been cornered on Saturday in a dead-end tunnel during an American military raid in a northern Syrian village. Mr. al-Muhajir was killed on Sunday in an airstrike elsewhere in northern Syria.
Mr. al-Baghdadi’s death came eight months after American-led forces in Syria seized the last remnants of the territory once held by the Islamic State, which at its height spanned an area the size of Britain across parts of Syria and Iraq.
The Islamic State announcement said that Mr. al-Baghdadi had been succeeded as leader by Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi, whom it identified as the “emir of the believers” and “caliph.”
Almost nothing is publicly known about Mr. al-Qurayshi, including his real name, and counterterrorism analysts were scrambling Thursday to try to figure out who he is.
“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, editor of the CTC Sentinel at the Combating Terrorism Center, said in a tweet on Thursday. “The group has not yet released any meaningful biographical details which might allow analysts to pinpoint his identity.”
Daniele Raineri, a journalist and analyst who has been studying the Islamic State’s leadership structure for more than a decade, said that ISIS leaders often acquire a new nom de guerre with the appointment to a new position, meaning Mr. al-Qurayshi may have had a completely different name last week.
The al-Qurayshi appellation at the end of his name indicates that he is being portrayed as a descendant of the Quraysh tribe of the Prophet Muhammad, a lineage that the Islamic State considers to be a prerequisite for becoming a caliph, or ruler of a Muslim theocracy.
Its use indicates that the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL and Daesh, continues to see itself as a caliphate — even if one with practically no territory.
“It shows that while the world is ready to pronounce the Islamic State dead and finished, the group’s core leadership continues to believe it can operate much as it has in the past,” said Colin P. Clarke, a senior fellow at the Soufan Center, a research organization in New York.
“The suggestion is that nothing changes, allegiance should still be to the leadership, and affiliates and franchises should continue to look to al-Qurayshi for guidance on how to operate,” he said.
The announcement, in a seven-minute, 37-second recording, was coupled with a warning to the United States not to gloat over killing Mr. al-Baghdadi, who oversaw beheadings of American hostages and other atrocities.
“Do not be happy America, for the death of Sheikh al-Baghdadi, and do not forget the cups of death at his hands, may God accept him,” the announcement said.
It boasted of the group’s disciples and expansion beyond the Middle East, even as its core territory in Iraq and Syria was reduced to nil: “Don’t you see America that the State is now on the threshold of Europe and CRecords of wire transfers and the testimony of captured fighters in the Democratic Republic of Congo indicate that ISIS has set up a base of operation in the Central African country.
The announcement also took aim at the leadership of Mr. Trump, admonishing the United States: “Don’t you see how you became the laughingstock of the nations, and an old and crazy man controls your fate, whose opinion changes between morning and evening?”entral Africa?”
The announcement implied that the Islamic State hierarchy had convened in order to discuss the successor question and suggested that he had been handpicked in advance by Mr. al-Baghdadi: “The sheikhs of the mujahedeen agreed, after consulting with their brothers and acting upon the recommendation of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to pledge allegiance to the sheikh and mujahid, the scholar, doer and worshiper Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi,” the announcement said.
It also called upon supporters to pledge allegiance to the new leader, a ritual that took new meaning under Mr. al-Baghdadi’s reign, as attackers around the world recorded video pledges of fealty to the caliph before carrying out killings.
Intelligence officials and analysts were rushing to try to make sense of the announcement and to place the announced successor among the known cadre of the Islamic State. Some speculated that Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi may be a new nom de guerre of Hajji Abdullah, who appears in recently recovered internal Islamic State records archived by Aymenn al-Tamimi, a researcher.
The recent announcement by the State Department of a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture was a sign of the importance that the United States placed on him.
Besides the new leader, the Islamic State announcement also proclaimed a new spokesman, identified as Abu Hamza al-Qurayshi, again using a name indicating a lineage from the Prophet’s tribe, and setting up another potential successor.
“Those names are the most generic names I can think of in a long time,” Mr. Raineri said. “This trick is obfuscating on purpose the possible links to people we know.”
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Bye-bye al-Baghdadi.
Hello Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi.
Like we didn't see this coming unfortunately.....
Yeah, I know. Although they seemed pretty quick with it, I guess they've been grooming new guy for quite some time.
On an idiotically-related note, al-Baghdadi was soooooo much easier to pronounce.
most ME names sound like you're hocking up a huge loogie
Names are a funny thing...the funniest name I know of came from the immigration practice group where I work......I can't spell it correctly but when sounded out it was Sit upon poot a tang.
Are you 100% certain someone wasn't yankin' your chain?
Yes I am certain
I had a couple of names to toss out, but nothing beats Sit Upon Poot a Tang.
I did. As I commented on another seed, ISIS is like a starfish. If you chop off an appendage, another will grow back.
One down, many to go.
It was inevitable that they would get a new leader
ISIS is not finished
Unfortunately....
they would be finished sooner if they named trump as their new leader
Possibly, because then Democrats would actually be interested in getting rid of the junior varsity.
the junior varsity will be impeached soon. merry fucking xmas trumpsters.
You are obviously, sadly, confused.
The junior varsity refers to ISIS.
Ask Barack.
It never was despite what Trump claimed to have done.
The ISIS model of "grooming" and radicalizing young men online worked for them, up to a point.
Law enforcement has gotten good at detecting it prior to the carrying out of violent attacks. But it only takes a couple "successful" attacks to put the victim country into turmoil.
Also, more people are following the "See something, say something" mantra.
Good pics of a Barney style country home, /s
Ha! On the other hand, the before photos weren't indicative of palace living.
Woo hoo! Trump took out Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi! Thanks CIC!
Looks like Donny Boy has more work to do
Well they haven't pushed their caliphate across the entire middle east as they did during our last presidency, so I would say Trump is doing pretty good. Hell, I would say this is cause for a military parade.
The entire middle east? Are you saying that the Israel was part of the caliphate?
In case you didn't hear we didn't withdraw from Syria. We just moved our troops and heavy armor to protect the Syrian oil fields. We still will be asking "permission" from Russia to enter Syria air space for bombing runs. (I blame Trump for buckling to the hawks in the Pentagon, and not so intelligent intelligence community.
As for the Kurds. They had better start cooperating with the Russians, Iranians, and Syrian government- like they should have been all along. The US is not a legal entity in Syria.
So don't worry, we are still violating international law at will.
Although that is an impressive display of blind faith, at the end of the day, Cadet Bone Spurs Butterball is just that: Cadet Bone Spurs Butterball.
And Obama is a bad used car salesman that needed a teleprompter to remember his lines.
Yet the left went orgasmic claiming he took out Bin Laden.
This is what you get when you have an Establishment two party system.
tRump didn't take out Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
His idea of take out is the drive thru windows.
LoserSezWhat?
All of the times Trump has refused to give Obama credit for the Osama bin Laden raid
President Trump on Sunday emphasized his own role in the apparent death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a U.S. raid in northwestern Syria, telling reporters that he had long pressed for Baghdadi’s capture.
“I’ve been looking for him for three years,” Trump said. “I’ve been looking for him. I started getting some very positive feedback about a month ago, and we had some incredible intelligence officials that did a great job.”
Soon after the morning announcement of the U.S. raid targeting Baghdadi, the White House proclaimed that under Trump’s watch, “we’ve obliterated” the militant leader and his self-proclaimed “caliphate.” Trump’s reelection campaign, meanwhile, began messaging supporters that “Pres. Trump has brought the #1 terrorist leader to justice.”
But eight years ago, Trump was highly critical of what he described as President Barack Obama’s undeserved “bragging” about the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Trump spent months insisting that Obama did not deserve credit for the May 2011 raid that ended with bin Laden’s death.
“But anybody sitting in that office, Wolf, would have — I keep hearing about, oh, bin Laden, the military did an incredible job and they called and they said, we have him. And he said, go get him,” Trump said, according to a transcript of the conversation. “What’s he going to say, don’t get him? And he gets all this credit? It’s a lot of crap.”
Days later, Trump called in to CNBC’s “Squawk Box” to talk about Rupert Murdoch, the White House correspondents’ dinner, his disdain for wind farms — and Obama’s “use” of bin Laden’s death in his reelection campaign. Trump said the then-president had to “use whatever he can use,” adding that he “can’t use the economy.”
Trump suggested that the Obama administration should have known of bin Laden’s whereabouts “years before,” then added that anyone in Obama’s position would have been able to do what he did.
“Any president sitting there when the generals come in and say we have him, who’s going to say, oh, let’s leave him alone?” Trump asked. “No person that I know of.”
In August 2012, Trump tweeted more criticism of Obama’s handling of the bin Laden matter, this time suggesting that he was using the al-Qaeda leader’s death for his own benefit.
Trump again insisted in October that Obama was not deserving of credit on that front, writing in a tweet that the praise should instead go to “our brave military and intelligence officers.”
As Obama debated Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney later in the month, Trump opined on Twitter that the sitting president was “an easy target on foreign policy.” He also suggested that Obama would start “bragging about Bin Laden.”
In a second tweet posted 34 minutes later, he said that all Obama had done with regard to the raid was “say O.K.,” once again asserting that the Navy SEALs who carried it out were the ones deserving of credit.
Trump was seemingly fixated on the topic that night. He returned to it a third time a few hours later, demanding that people “stop congratulating Obama for killing Bin Laden.”
Four more tweets about Obama’s allegedly undeserved credit for the raid followed over the next morning and afternoon. Trump said Obama “works hard to take all the credit away” from the military and Navy SEALs. He also claimed — incorrectly — that the debate was the first time that Obama had used the term “we” instead of “I” in describing the terrorist leader’s killing.
During his Sunday announcement about Baghdadi, Trump apparently still had the killing of bin Laden on his mind. He inaccurately claimed — not for the first time — that he had warned before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that the al-Qaeda leader was plotting terrorist strikes. Trump also suggested that Baghdadi’s death was more significant than bin Laden’s.
“This is the biggest there is. This is the worst ever,” Trump said. “Osama bin Laden was very big, but Osama bin Laden became big with the World Trade Center. This is a man who built a whole, as he would like to call it, a country, a caliphate, and was trying to do it again.”