By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 22 June 2021

The fifth speech of the Islamic State’s spokesman, Abu Hamza al-Qurayshi, was released earlier today by Al-Furqan Media under the title, “You Are Most Exalted If You Are [True] Believers” (وأنتم متفوقون إذا كنتم مؤمنين), drawn from Qur’an 3:139.

In the thirty-eight-minute audio statement, Abu Hamza spoke of the jihadists eliminating Sunni tribesmen in Iraq and Syria who have stood against IS, calling for the repentance of the rest of the tribes, while celebrating the targeting of PKK operatives in eastern Syria and congratulating the various foreign wilayats (provinces), the overseas branches of IS, on their apparent progress.

Abu Hamza started the speech with West Africa, a focus in IS messaging for some time, and seemed to acknowledge that a faction of Jamaat Ahl al-Sunnah Lid Dawa wal-Jihad (JAS or JASDJ), usually called “Boko Haram”, has indeed re-joined the Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP) in the wake of Abubakar Shekau’s demise, which he also nodded towards, though no names were mentioned.

IS’s Egyptian branch, Wilayat Sinai, was mentioned. In Afghanistan, IS’s Khorasan Province (ISKP) was encouraged to target both the government and the Taliban. The recent car bombing in Sebha is, it seems, intended to be the opening of a new round of offensive operations by the jihadists in Libya after the flare up (and flare out) of a year ago.

By implication of what was said here, IS’s plans for a new “Breaking the Walls” operation to release jihadi prisoners, which Abu Hamza underlined in his last speech, have not gone well. Abu Hamza offered financial rewards from the caliph himself, Amir Muhammad al-Mawla (Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi), for anyone who kills judicial officials or interrogators in Iraq and Syria.

HAMAS and the recent war with Israel was mentioned, only so HAMAS—without being directly named—could be lambasted as a stooge of the Iranians, with no grounds to complain about the Gulf states or Turkey normalizing with the Zionist project since HAMAS normalized long ago with Shi’is and Zoroastrians, who are at least as heretical and antagonistic to Islam as Jews.

Naturally, Abu Hamza says the State is baqiya (remaining).

[At some point I hope to find time to do a full transcript—KO]