The US-based SITE Intelligence Group said that the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) made the announcement on May 15 in posts on jihadist forums.

The new leaders are "Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi al-Husseini al-Qurashi, the Emir of the Believers of the Islamic State of Iraq" and "Sheikh Abu Abdullah al-Hassani al-Qurashi is his prime minister and deputy," it quoted a statement from the group as saying.

The ISI statement is likely to have used noms de guerre for the two new leaders.

"We ask Allah... to protect (the new leaders) and complete through their hands what the two martyred sheikhs began, in raising the banner of jihad, seeking to empower Allah's sharia (Islamic law), and building a strong Islamic state," ISI said, according to SITE.

On April 18, two top Al-Qaeda commanders in Iraq -- Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayub al-Masri -- were killed in a shootout when a joint Iraqi-US force raided their safe house north of the capital.

Baghdadi was the political leader of the group in Iraq while Masri, an Egyptian militant, was its prime minister and had also served as its minister of war.

SITE reported on Friday that ISI had announced a new war minister, naming him as Al-Nasser Lideen Illah Abu Suleiman.

The monitoring service also said that Abu Suleiman had announced a military campaign dubbed "The Attack of the Monotheists in Revenge for Honours in the Prisons of Apostates," and vowed that the ISI will continue to wage jihad.

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