On Wednesday, ISIS announced that its leader, Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, had been killed in a battle. He declared him his successor.
A spokesman for the organization said al-Hashemi, an Iraqi, was killed in a battle with “the enemies of God,” without clarifying the date or circumstances of his death.
The spokesman added in an audio message that the new leader of the organization is Abu Al-Hussein Al-Husseini Al-Qurashi.
The spokesman did not reveal details about the new leader, but said he is a “veteran” jihadist and invited all groups loyal to the Islamic State to swear allegiance to him.
The Islamic State has been defeated, after taking control of large swathes of land in Iraq and Syria in 2014, and witnessing the collapse of the so-called “caliphate” in light of a wave of attacks.
The organization was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and then in Syria two years later, but its elements are still launching attacks in both countries.
And the former leader of the organization, Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi, was killed last February in a US raid in the governorate of Idlib, in northern Syria.
His predecessor, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was also killed in Idlib in October 2019.
Hassan Hassan, author of a book on the Islamic State group, said one of the “unprecedented” but possible scenarios is that al-Hashemi was “accidentally killed during a raid or in combat without knowing who killed him.”
The US military’s Central Command said at the time that in October this year, US forces killed a “senior” member of the Islamic State group during a pre-dawn raid in northeastern Syria.
He added that a subsequent airstrike killed two high-ranking ISIS members.
The United States leads a military coalition fighting the Islamic State in Syria.
The Pentagon said in July that it had killed the Islamic State’s top jihadist in Syria during a drone strike in the country’s north.
The US central command added that it was “one of the five most important leaders” of the Islamic State.
Turkey said in September that security forces had captured a “senior leader” of the Islamic State group identified as Abu Zayd, whose real name was Bashar Khattab Ghazal al-Sumaida’i.
Turkish media added that there are indications that al-Sumaidai may have been the leader of the Islamic State.
