August 4th 2023.
On Thursday, the Islamic State group announced the death of its leader, Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurayshi, who had been heading the extremist organization since November. The group didn't specify when al-Qurayshi was killed but mentioned that he died while fighting with an al-Qaida-linked group. A new leader, Abu Hafs al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi, was appointed in his place.
Al-Qurayshi is the fourth IS leader to be killed since the group was founded by Iraqi militant Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and declared a caliphate in 2014. According to IS spokesman Abu Huthaifa al-Ansari, al-Qurayshi was martyred in rebel-held northwestern Syria by members of Syria's al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. He was attempting to detain al-Qurayshi at the time, and some of his IS members were arrested and are still being held.
The Islamic State group broke away from al-Qaida a decade ago and has since attracted many supporters. The group was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later. Despite this, IS militants still carry out deadly attacks in both countries and beyond. In fact, the Afghan branch of IS recently claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in Pakistan that left 63 people dead.
The former IS leader, al-Baghdadi, was killed in a raid by American troops in northwestern Syria in 2019. His successor, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, was killed in a U.S. raid in 2022. Al-Qurayshi is not the real name of the IS leaders but rather a nom de guerre derived from Quraish, the name of the tribe to which Islam's Prophet Muhammad belonged.
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