Daesh announced on Thursday August 3 the death of its leader, Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurachi. The jihadist group Islamic State (IS) published an audio recording on Telegram, stating that the man had been killed during clashes with the jihadist formation Hayat Tahrir al-Cham (HTS), in the northwest of Syria.
He was killed “after a direct confrontation […] in one of the localities of Idlib province” with HTS, a former local branch of Al-Qaeda, the IS spokesman said in a statement. voice recording published on one of the group’s Telegram channels, without specifying either the exact place or the date of his death. This jihadist formation, hostile to IS, was trying to capture Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurachi, said the spokesman.
His death had already been announced at the end of April by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, during an operation by the Turkish intelligence services in Syria. The IS spokesman announced the appointment of Abu Hafs al-Hashemi al-Qurachi as the new leader of the jihadist group.
On November 30, 2022, IS announced the death of its previous leader, without specifying the circumstances. Nine months earlier, in February, his predecessor had been killed in northwestern Syria in an operation by US special forces.
In October 2019, Washington announced the death of the first leader of IS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, during an American operation in Syria. IS was ousted in 2019 from the last territories it had taken control of in Syria in 2014 but continues to carry out attacks. Since the end of 2022, IS has multiplied deadly attacks in the country, particularly in the vast Syrian desert where the group’s cells are located.
