Between the announcement of the death of the leader of the Islamic State by Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the official communication of the terrorist organization last Thursday, 95 days have passed. Three months of waiting, of silence, of opacity. What about Abu Hussein al-Qurachi, and the head of Daesh? On this point, the statement of the IS is lapidary: the caliph died in combat, in a “direct confrontation”.
“Erdogan had spoken of an explosive belt”, but the formulation of Daesh “does not exclude suicide”, analyzes Jenny Raflik, professor of contemporary history at Nantes-University, specialist in particular in the fight against terrorism. “It opens up all interpretations for IS sympathizers,” she notes, with the possibility of giving al-Qourachi a “hero” posture. However, the statement from Daesh denies the version of Ankara, while “it would have been more rewarding to die facing the Turkish special forces”, notes Wassim Nasr, journalist specializing in Islamist terrorism.
Islamic State versus Al-Qaeda
Instead, IS says its leader died during an operation by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTC, sometimes also written as HTS) group in northern Syria. “It’s not surprising, it confirms that the war has been total between them since 2013”, he underlines. In detail, the HTC group, formed in 2017, is the heir of the al-Nusra Front, founded in 2012 by Abu Mohamad al-Joulani, under the impetus… of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, future charismatic leader of the ‘EI. The al-Nusra Front joined Al-Qaeda in 2013, before also moving away from it in 2016, still under the leadership of al-Joulani. HTC today controls a piece of Syrian territory around Idlib, on the border with Turkey, and denies global jihad. “HTC has no interest in upsetting Erdogan”, even if they would have liked to claim responsibility for the attack, pushes Wassim Nasr.
Behind this convoluted history, the first lesson of the death of al-Qurachi is that the first opponents of IS are now other Islamist groups. “The last two caliphs of IS were killed by Al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria, this is an important change,” said Jenny Raflik. “IS is no longer this territorial structure but remains well established, Al-Qaeda no longer has the same striking power” in the West but retains “a strong power of nuisance”. Between these two forces that could be described as declining, “the rivalry has been present from the start”, and a “distribution takes place”, observes the academic. “IS is expanding in the Sahel, there is a resurgence of attacks” throughout the Middle East and as far as Pakistan. Above all, the two structures “have emancipated themselves from their founding leaders”, and their death “does not put an end to the organization”.
“The branches are autonomous”
Moreover, for Jenny Raflik, the IS press release “announces above all the appointment of their new leader”, Abu Hafs al-Hashemi al-Qourachi, who moreover “triggered a series of swearing-in”, in particular in the Sahel. “Communication between the branches is difficult and scattered, they had to collect these allegiances before to have the desired effect”, decrypts Wassim Nasr. “We remain in continuity” by skipping the power vacuum, despite the “rapid succession” of leaders for a few months, supports Jenny Raflik.
“It won’t change anything operationally,” the two experts analyze in unison. Better, having a leader of whom we know almost nothing “makes it more difficult to eliminate him, moreover the EI regularly changes the nicknames of its fighters to prevent them from being identified”, indicates the Nantes historian. “The branches are autonomous, they are familiar with this mechanism”, assures Wassim Nasr. It is therefore not the death of its 3rd caliph since the beginning of 2022 that will bring down ISIS, even if the organization no longer has as many means as in 2015 to organize large-scale attacks in the West.