1. This week’s issue of al-Naba’, which was published last night, took #IS's campaign to legitimise its new leader in a new, quite surprising direction.
2. It was very defensive in tone.
Directly comparing the legacy of #IS's 'caliphs' with that of the Rashidun caliphs, it pushed back on criticism—seemingly from within #IS's own circles—of Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi and played down the strategic significance of his loss.
3. #IS also pushed back on criticism about how long it had taken it to confirm that Abu Ibrahim had been killed and replaced by Abul Hasan.
Per al-Naba’, everyone who needed to had pledged allegiance within less than 48 hours of the #Atmeh raid.
4. Lastly, #IS expressed its consternation at those among its supporters who have been speculating about the 'true' identity of Abul Hasan.
Clearly (and justifiably), it is deeply concerned about his security.
5. Separately, the campaign has also revealed something interesting about #IS’s comms setup in #Syria.
Whereas the photosets from #Nigeria and #Iraq were seemingly prepared by distributed media cadres operating in distinct zones of influence, this was not the case in #Syria.
6. In #Syria, all photos from all zones were published simultaneously.
There wasn’t a #Raqqa/#Homs/#Aleppo breakdown.
This suggests there’s one overarching #Syria media office as opposed to the more distributed comms networks we’ve seen in #Nigeria and #Iraq.
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