Islamic State announces new leader after death of Abu Hussein al-Qurashi

Iraqi jihadi Abu Hafs al-Hashemi al-Qurashi has been appointed Islamic State’s fifth leader since the 2014 establishment by the terror group of its cross-border caliphate in Syria and Iraq.

In an attempt to gain Islamic legitimacy, he has added al-Qurashi to his name to claim lineage to the tribe of the Prophet Muhammad. No information was given about him.

He replaces Abu Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi, who died in contested circumstances. Islamic State, also known as Isis, said he was slain in clashes in Syria with rival al-Qaeda offshoot Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) which, with Turkish support, controls the western sector of Syria’s northwestern Syrian Idlib province and adjacent swathes of land in Latakia and Aleppo provinces.

“The Sheikh, may God have mercy on him, was killed after [HTS] tried to take him captive. He fought with them until he succumbed to his wounds,” Islamic State spokesman Abu Huthaifa al-Ansari said in an audio message broadcast by the Telegram messaging app often used for communications by fundamentalist groups.

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Ansari did not reveal when or where this happened but said HTS handed over the dead leader’s body to Turkey.

A contradictory version of Qurashi’s demise emerged in April when Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed Turkish intelligence operatives killed him. Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency reported he had exploded a suicide vest when surrounded.

Turkish media published images of his hideaway in a fenced compound in Syria’s Afrin district, a formerly Kurdish majority area of neighbouring Idlib by Turkey in 2018. The Washington-based Soufan research centre said Mr Erdogan was keen to claim the operation to project his “strongman image” in advance of the country’s May 19th presidential election.

Islamic State’s founder and self-proclaimed caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, carved out the caliphate that stretched from Raqqa in north central Syria to Mosul and eastern Iraq, and at its height ruled eight million people. The terror group dictated people’s way of life and punished recalcitrants and rebels with fines, floggings, amputations, crucifixions and beheadings. The caliphate was defeated and dissolved in a US-led coalition campaign during 2017-2019.

Baghdadi blew himself up in 2019 during a US commando raid on his home in Idlib. His successors, Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi and Abu Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, were killed in February and November 2022 respectively.

The rapid turnover of leaders has not crippled Islamic State fugitives who early in 2022 raided a Kurdish-run prison in northeast Syria, killing warders and inmates and releasing scores of prisoners.

This spring dozens of civilians were killed while gathering truffles in Syria’s eastern desert. Last month six Shia Muslims died in an explosion claimed by Islamic State at a Shia shrine east of Damascus. On Monday fugitives roaming eastern Syria ambushed a Syrian army convoy oil tankers, killing five soldiers and two civilians. Nine jihadis were killed.