Below is a full translation of the speech released by Islamic State's al-Furqan Media on Wednesday announcing the death of the Islamic State's leader Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi and the appointment of his successor Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi. A few analytical points to note:

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In a surprise announcement today (30 November), the Islamic State- through its official spokesman Abu Omar al-Muhajir- announced the killing of its 'caliph' Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi without revealing any specific details apart from the fact that he was killed during fighting. His successor was declared to be Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi. Hours after the announcement, CENTCOM put out a statement saying that Abu al-Hasan was killed by the 'Free Syrian Army' in Syria's southern province of Deraa. The statement however made no mention of coordination with the U.S.-led coalition in the killing of Abu al-Hasan, and it has been clarified that the U.S. had no role in this matter.

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The World Cup this year in Qatar has attracted a great deal of controversy, primarily in relation to Qatar's treatment of foreign workers and stances against homosexual relations and rights to marriage. From the opposite end of the spectrum comes the Islamic State's denunciation of Qatar as a supposed 'Taghuti' (idolatrous tyrant) emirate that is waging war on Islam, with the country's hosting of the World Cup (deemed the 'Scum Cup' and other derisive names) being the latest evidence of its hostility to Islam.

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The village of Ma'loula is located in the province of Damascus countryside, in a mountainous area north of Damascus city. Predominantly a Christian village, Ma'loula is distinguished alongside Jubb'adin and Bakh'a for being a place where Western Neo-Aramaic is still spoken. During the war, insurgents occupied the village twice in 2013 before it was recaptured by the Syrian government and its allies in 2014. The insurgent takeover had a detrimental impact on the village that remains to this day.

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By now, many of the early battles of the Syrian civil war are a distant memory at best for most observers. They are nonetheless worth revisiting to examine how the insurgency developed and tried to conduct military operations in the early stages. One interesting case has recently been written about by the Telegram channel "Archive of the Battles and Martyrs of the Syrian Sahel" (which also penned the interesting account of the "A'isha Umm al-Mu'mineen" battle in Latakia in 2013). The battle covered here is one in which insurgents attempted to take over al-Nabi Yunis Summit in October 2012. The idea was that gaining control of this summit would grant the insurgents a strategic vantage point that would allow them to take control of other areas. Not all the insurgents in the Sahel (coastal) area agreed on waging this battle however, and argued instead for a battle to take the coastal town of Kassab. As a result, some foreign fighter groups did not participate in this battle for al-Nabi Yunis Summit.

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