ISIS leader killed in Free Syrian Army operation.a new one is chosen

CAIRO – The leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was killed in an operation carried out by the rebel Free Syrian Army in Syria’s Daraa province in mid-October, US forces said Wednesday. A group that once terrorized the Middle East.

The US military was not involved in the operation, according to a spokesman for US Central Command, which oversees US forces in Syria.

Earlier Wednesday, an ISIS spokesman said in an audio message posted on the associated Telegram channel that Abu al-Hassan al-Hashemi al-Quraishi had been killed while “fighting the enemy of God”. said it was.

He said ISIS has chosen Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Quraishi, aka Abu al-Hussein, as its new leader.

“Quarisi” refers to the tribe of the Prophet Muhammad, and ISIS leaders must claim that lineage.

The audio gave no details about the new ISIS leader.

former head of ISIS, Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi was killed in February 2022. US raids in northern Syria’s Idlib governorate. His predecessor, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was also killed in Idlib in October 2019.

“He is one of the faithful sons of the (Islamic) nation,” the spokesman said, urging ISIS members of all countries to pledge allegiance to the new leader.

Hassan Hassan, author of a book on ISIS, said it was “unprecedented”, but one possible scenario is that Hashemi was killed “during a raid or battle, without the knowledge of those who killed him.” He was “killed” by accident.

However, “Jihadist groups have a long history of claiming that their leaders and commanders are dead only to escape behind the backs of intelligence and security services,” he added on Twitter.

Hassan said ISIS has scaled back.

“This is not the end of the group, but for now it is a shadow of what it was before. “They no longer have an iconic, charismatic leader and haven’t made any major attacks lately.”