This is news that the West would have done well without in the midst of the Ukrainian conflict.
The jihadist organization Islamic State (IS) promised this Sunday to “avenge” its previous leader, who died in February.
"We are announcing, relying on God, a blessed campaign to take revenge" for the death of the leader of IS, said Abu Omar al-Muhajir, the group's spokesman, in an audio statement broadcast on Telegram on Sunday. assigned to them.
On February 3, US President Joe Biden announced the death of former ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hachimi al-Qurachi, who blew himself up during an operation by US special forces in the northwestern Syria, a region under the control of jihadists.
His death, along with that of the group's former spokesman, was confirmed by IS on March 10.
IS also called on its supporters to resume their attacks in Europe by seizing the "opportunity" of the "crusader fight", referring to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
10,000 active fighters
After a meteoric rise in 2014 in Iraq and neighboring Syria and the conquest of vast territories, the IS saw its self-proclaimed "caliphate" overthrown under the blow of successive offensives in these two countries, respectively in 2017 and 2019. .
But the Islamic State "maintains a largely clandestine presence in Iraq and Syria and is waging a sustained insurgency on both sides of the border between the two countries", according to a UN report published last year.
In these two countries, the jihadist organization would retain "in all 10,000 active fighters", according to the same source.
IS has also claimed responsibility for attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and affiliated jihadist groups also operate in Africa.