The United States on Tuesday placed the new head of the jihadist Islamic State (IS) group Amir Mohamad Saïd Abdel Rahmane al-Maoulas on their blacklist of "international terrorists".
By announcing these sanctions which block him access to any exchange with the United States or any American national, the head of the American diplomacy Mike Pompeo thus confirmed the identity of the successor of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, founder of the organization killed at the end of October in an American raid in Syria.
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Shortly after Baghdadi's death, ISIS officially designated Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurachi as the new "Caliph of Muslims". But the latter was unknown to analysts, some even doubting its existence. A senior American official called him "a complete stranger".
Several Western intelligence services have since identified al-Maoula, also founder of the group and one of its main ideologues, as the real new leader. "We remain determined to defeat IS in the long term, whoever its leader," said Mike Pompeo to the press in Washington. According to the US State Department, "al-Maoula was an active member of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the ancestor of IS, and rose through the ranks of IS to become its vice-emir" .