Thread: We published two insight pieces last week on the US announcement of killing IS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi in Idlib, Syria /1
The first examines how in over two years of leading the group and four leadership audio messages during his reign (including a fifth announcing his appointment), the "caliph" was never heard or seen. All messages were delivered via a spokesman /2 monitoring.bbc.co.uk/product/c2037x…
Such media absence and hardly any info about him offered by IS fueled speculation within anti-IS jihadist circles about his real identity and suitability for the title of "caliph", which in certain religous interpreatins requires specific physical and anscetral conditions /3
As well as the obvious security reasons, the IS-imposed secrecy about al-Qurashi's identity was possibly designed to offer leeway in the event of his reported death /4
Some IS supporters argue that the group itself had never confirmed that al-Qurashi was the man the US identified as Iraqi-Turkmen Amir Muhammad Sa’id Abdal-Rahman al-Mawla (aka Abdallah Qardash, Hajji Abdallah) /5
Our report also looks at the difficultiy to guess who might succeed al-Qurashi. IS is very careful about the security of its top-tier leaders and has commonly refrained from allowing many of them to have public profiles /6
The only current central IS leadership figure with anything resembling a public profile is spokesman Abu Hamza al-Qurashi, who has only featured in audio messages /7
Given his last name, which means a descendant of Prophet Muhammad's tribe of Quraysh- a prerequisite for the role of caliph- he may be eligible for the role /8
But apart from his voice in audio messages, his alleged Quraysh lineage and the title "al-Muhajir", meaning "immigrant" or foreign fighter, we know less about Abu Hamza al-Qurashi than we do about Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi (again, not saying that he's the likely successor) /9
In another piece, we looked that the very odd choice of refuge for the last two leaders of Islamic State group (IS), Idlib province in Syria /10 monitoring.bbc.co.uk/product/c20380…
Idlib is controlled by IS's staunch jihadist rival, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), and is home to other jihadist and rebel rivals of IS. IS critics are asking how the group's leaders came to take refuge in an area near the Turkish border that is "swarming" with HTS security /11
Some jihadist detractors & few "supporters" posed a theological question:is it religiously permissible for IS leaders to seek refuge in territory considered "land of kufr [disbelief]" given the hardline assertion that "true" Muslims shouldn't live in land ruled by the "kuffar"/12
Some IS supporters tried to justify that by saying that all lands today have become land of "kufr"/13
A key anti-IS jihadist account claimed that during the battle of Baghouz in Syria in Mar 2019, IS leadership banned its members & their families from seeking refuge in Idlib "under the pretext it is land of kufr and apostasy". This caused many to be killed or arrested, he said/14
Meanwhile, the fact that yet another jihadist official has been killed by the US in Idlib has renewed criticism & accusations against HTS, whom jihadists say appears to have no clue about what's happening on its territory at best, or is complicit in US operations at worst /15
HTS has finally broken its silience on the big operation that took place on its own territory. It issued a statment denying prior knowledge of the US operation or the identity of the residents of the targeted house. It also condemned the US op citing the civilian casualties /16
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