BEIRUT: The militant Islamic State (IS) group announced on Thursday the death of its leader Abu al Hussein al Husseini al Qurashi in clashes in north-western Syria.

The leader “was killed after direct clashes” with Hayat Tahrir al Sham group in Idlib province, an IS spokesman said in a recorded message on its channels on the Telegram messaging app, without specifying when he was killed.

President Tayyip Erdogan said in April that Turkish intelligence forces had killed the militant group’s leader in Syria, Reuters reported.

The spokesman announced the group’s new leader — its fifth — as Abi Hafsan Al Hashimi Al Qurashi.

Militant group also announces new leader

After a meteoric rise in Iraq and Syria in 2014 that saw it conquer vast swathes of territory, IS saw its self-proclaimed “caliphate” collapse under a wave of offensives.

The group’s austere and terror-ridden rule was marked by beheadings and mass shootings.

It was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later, but sleeper cells still carry out attacks in both countries.

In November last year, IS said its previous leader, Abu Hasan Al Hashimi Al Qurashi, had been killed.

His predecessor, Abu Ibrahim Al Qurashi, was killed in February last year in a US raid in Idlib province.

The group’s first “caliph”, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, was killed in Idlib in October 2019.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2023