ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Islamic State (ISIS) confirmed on Thursday the death of its former leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi and announced Abu al-Hassan al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi as its new leader.
In an audio message shared on the group's propaganda Telegram channel, ISIS spokesperson Abu Omar al-Muhajir confirmed the death of Qurayshi without providing details, and said that the jihadists had appointed Abu al-Hassan al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi as his successor.
Muhajir called on Muslims to pledge allegiance to the new leader, but refused to share his real name and photo. Despite sharing the same nom de guerre, the two are not believed to be related. Instead, al-Qurayshi stems from Quraish, the name of the tribe that the Prophet Muhammad belonged to, and a tribe that ISIS claim its leaders originate from. The former Qurayshi's real name was Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli, but the new leader's identity remains unclear.
Former ISIS leader Qurayshi blew himself up during an overnight US special operations raid in the early hours of February 3 in Idlib, northwest Syria.
On top of Qurayshi, the attack left twelve others dead, including four children and three women, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Rudaw English following the operation.
Three years prior, the group's longtime leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died in a similar US-forces raid in 2019.
ISIS detainees led an audacious attack on the al-Sina'a prison in Hasaka's Ghweran neighborhood in northeast Syria (Rojava) in late January.
According to a report published earlier that month by Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, however, there is little evidence of a significant ISIS resurgence in Iraq, with the militants increasingly isolated from the population. “The Islamic State’s insurgency in Iraq underwent a steep decline over the last 20 months,” the global security think-tank stated.
Updated at 9:05 pm