According to the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of the Islamic State group in Syria is being killed by Turkish forces.
Following the death of his predecessor in the group last autumn, Abu Hussein al-Qurayshi is said to have assumed leadership.
According to the Turkish MIT intelligence agency, during an operation on Saturday, the IS leader was neutralised.
Mr. Erdogan said Qurayshi has been being tracked by the MIT intelligence service for a “long time.” Without offering any additional information, he continued, “We will keep up our fight against terrorist organisations without any discrimination.”
According to the sources provided by the Reuters news agency, the operation took place in the “northern town of Jandaris, near the border of Turkey.”
The jihadist organisation declared the passing of Abu al-Hassan al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi in November. According to the US, he was killed in a strike by the opposition Free Syrian Army in southwest Syria in the middle of October 2022.
He assumed control of the organisation when the previous commander, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, detonated a bomb in February 2022, destroying himself and his entire family as US special forces closed in on his stronghold during a shootout.
According to then-US President Joe Biden, the operation “wiped out a major terrorist threat to the world.”
Almost eight million people were subject to the brutal rule of IS when it once controlled 88,000 square kilometres (34,000 square miles) of land extending from northern Iraq to northeastern Syria.
In spite of the group being driven from its final area of control in 2019, the UN issued a warning in July that it still posed a persistent threat.
Between “6,000 and 10,000” fighters are thought to be present in Syria and Iraq; they are primarily stationed in rural regions and continue to engage in hit-and-run incidents, kidnappings, and roadside explosives.
Regional IS branches are a concern in different crisis areas throughout the globe. According to the UN, networks operating in Afghanistan, Somalia, and the Lake Chad basin are the most active and well-known.
