BAGHDAD – The Islamic State of Iraq, the insurgent group that serves as a front for al-Qaeda in Iraq, announced Sunday that it had replaced two senior leaders killed in a raid last month.
A statement, circulated on the Internet, was another indication that the group was seeking to reconstitute itself after a series of defeats that American and Iraqi military officials have described as a crucial setback for the group.
Officials say scores of its fighters have recently been killed or arrested and that the network, long the most formidable and resilient militant group, is in disarray.
Unlike past statements that were often replete with florid language, Sunday’s announcement was subdued. It said the group had named Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi al-Husseini al-Qurashi as the new leader after consultations with the group’s leaders, influential people and “opinion makers.”
The statement said his deputy would be Abu Abdallah al-Husseini al-Qurashi.
“We implore God to help them make the right decisions,” the statement continued.
The men’s names are almost certainly noms de guerre. Mohammed al-Alawi, a spokesman for Iraq’s minister of national security affairs, Sharwan al-Waili, said he had not yet seen the statement and had no immediate information on the two men.
The men replace Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, an Egyptian known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who were killed in an American and Iraqi raid near Tikrit. Al-Muhajir also served as the group’s military commander. In a statement Friday, the group said that position would be filled by Al-Nasser Lideen Allah Abu Suleiman.
In that statement, Abu Suleiman vowed revenge for the killing of the group’s two leaders. He warned of “a long gloomy night and dark days colored in blood” and urged followers not to “become accustomed to having a loose hand on the trigger.”
Despite American and Iraqi contentions that the movement has been dealt a perhaps crippling blow, insurgents have proven resilient enough to keep launching coordinated and far-reaching attacks.
Last week, more than 100 people were killed and hundreds more were wounded in a series of assaults that included ambushes of police and military checkpoints in Baghdad and devastating bombings in three cities.