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Islamic State group leader Abu Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, whose death was announced Wednesday by the jihadist group, was killed by rebels in southern Syria, the US military said.
Hashimi was killed in “mid-October” in an operation carried out “by the Free Syrian Army in Daraa province,” the US Central Command (CENTCOM), said in a statement, referring to a group Washington considers as part of the Syrian opposition.
CENTCOM described his death as “another blow” to the extremist group.
A spokesman for the Islamic State group said Hashimi, an Iraqi, was killed “in combat with enemies of God”, without elaborating on the date of his death or the circumstances.
Speaking in an audio message, the spokesman identified the group’s new leader as Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi.
Qurashi refers to a tribe of the Prophet Mohammed, from whom IS leaders must claim descent.
The spokesman did not provide details on the new leader, but said he was a “veteran” jihadist and called on all groups loyal to IS to pledge their allegiance.
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 of the Sunni Muslim extremist group still carry out attacks in both countries.
IS’s previous leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi, was killed in February this year in a US raid in Idlib province in northern Syria.
His predecessor Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed, also in Idlib, in October 2019.
Hassan Hassan, who authored a book on IS, said one “unprecedented” but possible scenario was that the Hashimi “was killed ‘accidentally’ during a raid or fighting without him being known to whoever killed him”.
In October this year, US forces…
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Source : france24
