ISTANBUL — The jihadists of the Islamic State introduced on Wednesday that their chief, whose id had remained shrouded in thriller, had been killed in battle lower than 9 months after taking cost of the terrorist group.
A spokesman for U.S. Central Command, which oversees American troops in Syria, confirmed that the chief was useless, saying he had been killed in mid-October by anti-government rebels in southern Syria.
The Islamic State additionally named a successor, however offered no details about him aside from a nom de guerre.
The management transition, introduced by a voice message on Telegram, got here at a time of extreme weakness for the group, which has been diminished in just a few years from the world’s most fearsome terrorist community to a low-level insurgency struggling to take care of its relevance in principally rural elements of nations torn by battle.
At its top, the Islamic State dominated a self-proclaimed caliphate the scale of Britain that spanned the border between Syria and Iraq and boasted tens of hundreds of fighters from across the globe. Its extremist imaginative and prescient of everlasting fight between its forces and anybody who opposed them impressed lethal assaults in Paris, Brussels, Istanbul, Berlin, Baghdad and different main cities.
However a world coalition led by the USA labored with native forces in Iraq and Syria to combat it, lastly pushing it from its final patch of territory in jap Syria in March 2019.
Since then, Islamic State fighters have continued to assault civilians and safety forces in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elements of Africa, however with enormously weakened skills, whereas its management has been decimated by the USA’ navy and its associate forces.
The chief whose dying was introduced on Wednesday glided by the identify Abu al-Hassan al-Hashemi al-Quraishi. He had been named by the group in March, after its two earlier leaders had been killed in separate raids by United States particular forces on secure homes in northern Syria.
Little was identified about Mr. al-Quraishi’s background, together with his actual identify, or any steps that he took to attempt to revive the group.
The message launched on Wednesday stated solely that he had been killed “combating the enemies of God,” and that he had been changed by Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Quraishi, additionally a nom de guerre, whose actual id was not identified.
In an announcement, Col. Joe Buccino, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, known as Mr. al-Quraishi’s dying “one other blow” to the Islamic State.
