ISIS announces new leader, ‘al-Qurayshi’

WASHINGTON — Counterterrorism analysts were scrambling on Thursday to try to figure out more about the new leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi, about whom almost nothing — including his real name — is publicly known.

Days after ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his heir apparent were killed in back-to-back attacks by US forces in northern Syria, the group broke its silence on Thursday to confirm their deaths, announce AlQurayshi as the new leader and warn America: “Do not be happy.”

”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 ISIS’ leadership structure for more than a decade, said that the group’s leaders often acquire a new nom de guerre with the appointment to a new position, meaning 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 ISIS considers to be a prerequisite for becoming a caliph or ruler of a Muslim theocracy.