Just days after Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a raid by US special forces in October, the
Islamic State group announced the name of the man who has replaced him as leader.
"We don't know much about him except that he is the leading judge of IS and he heads the Sharia (Islamic law) committee," said Hisham al-Hashemi, an Iraqi expert on the jihadist group.
"The organisation was taken by surprise by the brutality of Baghdadi's elimination," said Jean-Piere Filiu, an Arab world specialist at Paris' Sciences-Po university.