ISIS leader killed in Free Syrian Army operation; a new one is picked
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A compound that housed ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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CAIRO - The leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was killed in an operation carried out by the rebel Free Syrian Army in mid-October in Syria’s Daraa province, the US military said on on Wednesday, another heavy blow to a group that once struck fear across the Middle East.
No American military troops were involved in the operation, according to a spokesman for the US Central Command, which oversees US troops in Syria.
Earlier on Wednesday, a spokesman for ISIS, in an audio message posted on an affiliated Telegram channel, said Abu al-Hassan al-Hashemi al-Quraishi, a nom de guerre, was killed while “fighting enemies of God”, without elaborating.
He said ISIS has selected Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Quraishi – also an alias – as its new leader.
“Quraishi” refers to a tribe of the Prophet Muhammad, from whom ISIS leaders must claim descent.
No details about the new ISIS leader were given in the audio.
ISIS’ previous chief, Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi, was killed in February 2022
The spokesman urged ISIS members in all countries to pledge allegiance to the new leader, adding that “he is one of the loyal sons of the (Islamic) state”.
Mr Hassan Hassan, author of a book on ISIS, said one “unprecedented” but possible scenario was that Hashemi “was killed ‘accidentally’ during a raid or fighting without him being known to whoever killed him”.
But “jihadist groups have a long history of claiming leaders/commanders dead, just to get intelligence/security agencies off their backs,” he added on Twitter.
Mr Hassan said ISIS has been diminished.
“This doesn’t mean the group is finished, but for now it is a shadow of its former self. They are hollowed out in terms of their leadership and their ability to carry out attacks,” he said. “They don’t have iconic, charismatic leaders any more, and they haven’t carried out any major attacks recently.”
The White House welcomed the news that Hashemi was killed, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
ISIS emerged from the chaos of the civil war in neighbouring Iraq and took over vast swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014.
Former ISIS caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared an Islamic caliphate from a mosque in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul that year and proclaimed himself caliph of all Muslims.
ISIS’ brutal rule, during which it killed and executed thousands of people in the name of its narrow interpretation of Islam, came to an end in Mosul, when Iraqi and international forces defeated the group there in 2017.
Since the peak of its power seven years ago, when it ruled millions of people in the Middle East and frightened the world with deadly bombings and shootings, ISIS has slipped back into the shadows.
Its remaining thousands of militants have, in recent years, mostly hid out in remote hinterlands of fractured Iraq and Syria, though they are still capable of carrying out significant insurgent-style attacks. REUTERS, AFP
