Daesh confirmed this Thursday in a statement, the death of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. His successor has also been appointed. This is Abi Ibrahim Al-Hachimi Al-Qurachi
This Thursday, in a statement, Daesh confirmed the death of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The jihadist group also confirmed the death, in another raid, of his former spokesman, Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajir, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s right hand man. Daesh also appointed a successor to his leader, named Abi Ibrahim Al-Hachimi al-Qurachi.
It was US President Donald Trump who announced Sunday, from the White House, the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, considered responsible for multiple atrocities and atrocities in Iraq and Syria and bloody attacks.
Daesh calls to avenge the death of its leader
On Wednesday, the Pentagon broadcast several photos and video clips where we see a dozen soldiers approach, in the night of Saturday to Sunday, the compound of the complex where was hidden the jihadist leader in the village of Baricha, in northwestern Syria. Accused by US forces, Daesh’s leader blew himself up with his “jacket” laden with explosives as he took refuge in a tunnel dug for his protection. “He died like a dog,” said Donald Trump.
In its seven-minute audio recording, the jihadist organization called on Thursday to avenge this death, specifically threatening the United States of retaliation.
“Do not rejoice America (…),” he said. “He came who will make you forget the horrors” of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and “the bitter cuts (…) whose taste will seem sweet to you,” added the organization in reference to its new leader.
Kurds in Syria fear reprisals from Daesh
Since he proclaimed himself, in 2014, “caliph” of a territory that counted up to seven million inhabitants, straddling Iraq and Syria, the leader of the jihadist group had become the most wanted man in the world. His death was announced several times, always wrongly: all attempts to eliminate this 48-year-old Iraqi had failed, as the imam lived in the shadows.
His successor inherited a jihadist movement that had to, after the fall of his “caliphate” in March and other military defeats, dissolve into a multitude of clandestine cells in Syria and Iraq, with difficult communications in countries in full chaos.
The new jihadist leader may be ordered to command some 14,000 fighters scattered in Syria and Iraq and be closer to the current leader of al-Qaeda, the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, said Wednesday Russ Travers, acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center, the body that oversees the fight against terrorism in the United States.
Kurdish forces in Syria, Washington’s partners during the years of fighting IS jihadists, have also said they fear reprisals from the group after Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death.
“Everything is expected, including attacks on prisons,” said Mazloum Abdi, commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), referring to Kurdish-run centers that house thousands of jihadists.