Months after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the country's forces killed the chief of terrorist group ISIS, the terrorist group on Thursday confirmed that its leader Abu Hussein al-Husseini al-Quraishi is indeed dead.
The ISIS also named Abu Hussein's successor on Thursday. The new leader of ISIS has been named as Abu Hafs al-Hashimi al-Quraishi.
Earlier in April, Erdogan said that Turkish personnel had killed Abu Hussein in Syria. He said that Turkish intelligence agency, MIT, had been following Abu Hussein "for a long time". While Erdogan said Turkish personnel killed Abu Hussein, Reuters reported the ISIS saying that he died in a fight with terrorist rivals.
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Abu Hussein is the third chief of ISIS to have been killed in just over a year's time. His predecessor Abu Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi was killed in November 2022 and his predecessor Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi was killed in a US operation in February 2022.
What did ISIS announce?
The ISIS announced that its chief Abu Hussein Al-Husseini Al-Quraishi is dead.
The ISIS named its new chief as Abu Hafs al-Hashimi al-Quraishi.
Quraishi was killed during a gun battle with Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), the main Islamist group that holds sway in the last opposition bastion in northwest Syria, the spokesman said, reported Reuters.
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"The Sheikh (Quraishi), may God have mercy on him, was killed after they (HTS) tried to take him captive. He clashed with them with his arms until he died of his wounds," the spokesman said. He accused the rival Islamist group of acting as agents of Turkish intelligence.
Continuing the trend of the past few years, the new chief also has "al-Quraishi" in his name. This is not their real name and it does not mean these chiefs are related.
'Quraish' was Prophet Muhammed's tribe and ISIS adds 'Quraishi' to their leaders' names to portray them as the leader of the Muslim world.
"Like his predecessor, Abu al-Hassan selected a name designed to indicate he is a descendant of the Hashemite clan of the Qurashi tribe, which by bloodline would link him to Prophet Muhammed — an IS requirement for any would-be caliph," reported VOA News when Abu Hasan was named as ISIS chief.
What is ISIS, what is its current status?
The terrorist group ISIS stands for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. It has also been referred to as ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant.
The ISIS is a Sunni terrorist organisation which seeks the establishment of a global Islamic state called a Caliphate.
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For years, the ISIS ruled over large tracts of land across Iraq and Syria but this territorial control ended in 2019. Since then, the ISIS along with its branches in different parts of the world have mounted an insurgencies and terrorist attacks.
"At its height, the ISIS held about a third of Syria and 40 per cent of Iraq. By December 2017, it had lost 95 per cent of its territory, including its two biggest properties, Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, and the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, its nominal capital," says think tank Wilson Center.
ISIS began as an offshoot of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQIQ) and its most famous leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was killed in a US operation in 2019.
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As of now, ISIS has thousands of militants who in recent years mostly hid out in remote hinterlands in Iraq and Syria, though they are still capable of carrying out hit-and-run attacks, reported Reuters.
