The Daesh terrorist group announced on Thursday the death of its little-known leader, Abu Hussein al-Qurashi, who it said was killed in clashes in northwestern Syria, and named a successor.
Al-Qurashi had been heading the terrorist organization since November. It did not say when he was killed.
It appeared to be the group's first official announcement on its leader's fate since Türkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in April that Turkish intelligence forces had killed him in Syria.
Al-Qurashi "was martyred after direct clashes" with members of Syria's al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham when they tried to detain him in the province of Idlib, Daesh spokesperson Abu Huthaifa al-Ansari said in an audio message on the Telegram messaging app.
"He fought them until he succumbed to his wounds," al-Ansari said of al-Qurashi, adding that the al-Qaida-linked group detained some Daesh members who were with the late leader, including Abu Omar al-Muhajir, another spokesperson, and that they are still being held.
Erdoğan in April said al-Qurashi had been killed in Syria in an operation carried out by Türkiye’s MIT intelligence agency.
"The suspected leader of Daesh, codenamed Abu Hussein al-Qurashi, has been neutralized in an operation carried out... by the MIT in Syria," Erdoğan said at the time.
Turkish media released images of a fenced-off building in the middle of a field where it said he was hiding in Syria's Afrin region. Afrin lies in Aleppo province, neighboring Idlib.
The Anadolu Agency (AA) said at the time that the MIT conducted a four-hour operation during which it located the Daesh leader. Al-Qurashi set off his suicide vest when he realized he was about to be captured, AA said, adding that no Turkish operatives were killed or injured.
Al-Qurashi is the fourth Daesh leader to be killed since the group was founded by terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and declared a self-proclaimed caliphate in large parts of Syria and Iraq in June 2014 before its defeat years later.
Al-Baghdadi was killed in a raid by American troops in northwestern Syria in October 2019. The group's leader after that, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, was also killed in a U.S. raid in February 2022, in northwestern Syria. His successor was killed in southern Syria later that year.
The spokesperson al-Ansari said Abu Hafs al-Hashemi al-Qurashi was named as the group's new leader.
The terrorist group took over vast swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014 under the leadership of al-Baghdadi. But it lost its grip on the territory after campaigns by U.S.-backed forces in Syria and Iraq and Syrian forces backed by Iran, Russia and various paramilitaries.
A U.S.-led coalition force still raids Daesh officials in Syria. In addition, the U.S., under the pretext of this "fight" against Daesh, supplies military equipment and training to PKK/YPG, a terrorist group holed out in northeastern Syria, despite protests by Türkiye, which both terrorist groups target.
In the past, Daesh would claim victories only dreamt of by al-Qaida, seizing vast stretches of territory that spanned the heart of the Middle East. At its height, the terrorist group controlled roughly one-third of Syria and 40% of Iraq amid widespread instability, claiming major cities, including Mosul and Raqqa, and bringing an iron-fisted rule that attracted people worldwide.
Its gruesome violence was spread worldwide, with videos of human immolation and beheadings circulating online. It later directed and inspired vicious terror attacks that killed innocents in London, Paris, Istanbul, New York City and Orlando, Florida.
An Afghan branch of Daesh has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing on Sunday in Pakistan at a pro-Taliban party's election rally, in one of the worst attacks in Pakistan in recent years. The death toll from that attack has climbed to 63.