IS group leader killed in battle in south Syria

BEIRUT — The Islamic State group said on Wednesday that its leader Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi had been killed in battle and announced a replacement to head up the sleeper cells.

A spokesman for the IS group said the leader was an Iraqi, and didn’t elaborate on the date or circumstances of his death.

Al-Qurayshi is the latest IS leader who has been killed this year at a time when the terror group has been trying to rise again with its sleeper cells carrying out deadly attacks in Iraq and Syria.

The United States military’s Central Command, or CENTCOM, said the leader had been killed in an operation carried out by the rebels in Daraa Province in southern Syria in mid-October.

Daraa is mostly controlled by Syrian government forces and rebels who have reached a consensus with the government.

In mid-October, Damascus said it had launched a joint operation against IS with former rebels in the south of the province.

Little had been known about al-Qurayshi, who took over the group’s leadership following the death of his predecessor Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi in a US raid in February in northwestern Syria.

Using an alternative acronym for IS, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said: “We welcome the announcement that another leader from ISIS is no longer walking in the face of the Earth.”

Speaking in an audio message, the IS spokesman said Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurayshi had been named as the group’s new leader.

The spokesman did not provide details on the new leader, but said he was a “veteran” fighter and called on all groups loyal to IS to pledge their allegiance to its fourth leader.

After a meteoric rise in Iraq and Syria in 2014 that saw it conquer vast swathes of territory, IS saw its self-proclaimed “caliphate” collapse under a wave of offensives.

It was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later, but sleeper cells still carry out attacks in both countries.

The group and its branches have also claimed attacks elsewhere this year, including in Afghanistan, Iran and Israel.

The IS leadership has suffered repeated blows from various quarters this year, but CENTCOM spokesman Colonel Joe Buccino said the group “remains a threat to the region”.