NAIROBI: The new leader of Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab rebels is thought to be one of the most trusted lieutenants of the group’s late chief, but may have been named as a figurehead, experts said Sunday.

Al-Shabab acknowledged in a statement Saturday that former leader Ahmad Abdi Godane had died in a U.S. airstrike last Monday. The group named Ahmad Umar, also known as Abu Ubaidah, as its new head, while also stating it remained a part of Al-Qaeda’s global network.

Very little is known about Abu Ubaidah, and a senior Al-Shabab official only described him as having been very close to Godane, a hard-liner who had overseen the group’s transformation from local insurgency to major regional guerrilla threat.

“Avenging the death of our scholars and leaders is a binding obligation on our shoulders that we will never relinquish nor forget no matter how long it takes,” the Al-Shabab statement said.

“By the permission of Allah, you will surely taste the bitter consequences of your actions,” it added, while also renewing a pledge of allegiance to Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s successor.

Sources close to Al-Shabab said Abu Ubaidah was thought to have been involved in a major internal purge that took place last year, when Godane eliminated several key rivals including a commander who had been tipped as a potential successor.

Abu Ubaidah is also thought to have had a hand in the last year’s killing of Alabama-born Omar Hammami – better known as Al-Amriki or “the American” – who was one of the most prominent foreigners fighting in Somalia but who fell out with Godane.

According to Roland Marchal a researcher at France’s CNRS, it is unlikely that the group managed to assemble all its top commanders to discuss the succession because of fears of further airstrikes.

“This signifies that not everybody was consulted. It is possible that Abu Ubaidah will not be there for a long period, just enough time for them to reorganize themselves. It is not out of the question that he is just an interim leader,” Marchal said.

According to an intelligence source, Abu Ubaidah is believed to have played a role in the Al-Shabab’s most shadowy and feared wing, the clandestine internal secret service known as “Amniyat,” which Godane set up to maintain discipline and expose rivals and informers.

The source said the new leader is thought to be in his early 40s and from the southern port town of Kismayo, which is currently held by Kenyan troops fighting with the African Union’s AMISOM force. He also once served as Al-Shabab’s governor in the Bay and Bakool region.

But Marchal said Abu Ubaidah was also from a minority Somali clan – which could cause tensions related to the complex clan dynamics that are still at play beneath the Al-Shabab’s veneer of being an Islamist organization.

“The Al-Shabab is also an organization and not just one leader. Abu Ubaidah is not known as someone who deals with the political economy of the organization,” including sources of revenue that fund its army estimated to number 5,000 to 7,000 fighters, Marchal said.

Disinformation cannot be ruled out, another intelligence source said, explaining the pressure of constant surveillance and drone strikes means Al-Shabab may even have named a “simple figurehead,” a “ghost” or “given a pseudonym” as a deliberate tactic to protect their real hierarchy.

Godane himself took over the leadership of Al-Shabab in 2008 after then-leader Adan Hashi Ayro was killed by a U.S. missile attack.