Erdogan neutralizes last remaining rival for caliph position

Secular caliph and lion of the Sunnis Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Thursday the demise of ISIS leader Abu al-Hussein al-Qurashi in a raid on his hideout in the north of the governorate of Syria, a throwback to the victory of the Ottomans over the Mamelukes and a final nail in the coffin of those who sought to usurp the hearts of the Islamic Ummah from him.

Erdogan said the operation was a fatal blow to any who rebel against the sultan.

“Al-Qurashi and his acolytes did not submit to my authority as caliph and refused to pledge allegiance like other Muslim tribes and groups, so we made an example of their leader,” he said. “We hope it will be an inspiration for those voting in less than two weeks in the Turkish elections.”

Al-Qurashi’s death comes against a backdrop of preparations in the country for a showdown with its internal enemies, ahead of so-called “elections,” a word the Ottoman leadership uses to describe the process of pledging allegiance to the sultan, in a nod to modernist ideals.

“We can no longer simply bury our enemies within the state as we did in the good old days, so we rely on ballot boxes instead of coffins now, and getting rid of this external rival will demonstrate my own strength and integrity,” he added.

Al-Qurashi’s death comes a mere five months after he took up the mantle of ISIS leader from Abu al-Hassan al-Qurashi, who himself died less than a year after his predecessor Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi, who we only heard from when he became caliph after the death of the iconic Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who secured his historic legacy through the killing, torture, burning, enslavement and rape of everything regardless of religion, sect, sex, age and species