The leader of ISIS, Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, was killed in battle recently, the group’s spokesperson revealed Wednesday — making him the second commander of the extremist group to be slain this year.
Little is known about Al-Qurayshi, who rose to power after Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi was killed in Syria by US special forces last winter, and no further details about his death were offered by the spokesman, Abu Omar al-Muhajer.
The senior jihadists were not believed to be related and used the nom de guerre “Al-Qurayshi” as a nod to the tribe of the 7th century Islamic Prophet Muhammad.
“He died fighting the enemies of God killing some of them before being killed like a man on the battlefield,” al-Muhajer said.
Al-Muhajer said that Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurayshi was named as the group’s new leader.
“He is one of the veteran warriors and one of the loyal sons of the Islamic State,” the spokesperson said.
No group claimed responsibility for killing the leader, whose death came as ISIS had been deploying sleeper cells to carry out sporadic deadly attacks in areas of Iraq and Syria — regions it had once declared caliphates.
ISIS affiliates in Afghanistan had also been ramping up attacks there since the Taliban took control of the country amid a chaotic US withdrawal last summer.
The Islamic State also took credit for the slaughter of religious pilgrims in Iran amid violent crackdowns on human right protesters.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said defense officials “certainly welcome the news of the death of another ISIS leader,” but said no additional details were available.
ISIS broke away from al-Qaida about ten years ago and came to control large swaths of northern and western Iraq and northern and eastern Syria before being ousted from power in the countries in 2017 and 2019 respectively.
With Post wires
