The new leader of Dai’sh aka Islamic State, whose appointment the group announced on Thursday, is the brother of slain former caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, according to two Iraqi security officials and one Western security source. Da’ish named its new leader Abu al-Hassan al-Hashemi al-Quraishi in a recorded audio message distributed online.
The announcement came weeks after the death last month of Abu Ibrahim al-Quraishi, the man who in turn succeeded Baghdadi in 2019 and became the group’s second so-called caliph. Both Baghdadi and Quraishi died by blowing themselves and family members up during US raids on their hideouts in northern Syria. Da’ish, a successor to al Qaeda’s notoriously bloodthirsty Iraq branch, has its roots in an insurgency against US forces.
