Abu Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi has been killed in battle, says militant group\u2019s spokesperson
\n Iraq
\nThe militant Islamic State or Dai\u2019sh group said on Wednesday that its leader Abu Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi has been killed in battle and announced a replacement.
\nA spokesperson for the group said Hashimi, an Iraqi, was killed \u201cin combat with enemies of God,\u201d without elaborating on the date or circumstances of his death.
\nSpeaking in an audio message, the spokesperson identified the group\u2019s new leader as Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi.
\nAfter a meteoric rise in Iraq and Syria in 2014 that saw it conquer vast swathes of territory, Dai\u2019sh saw its self-proclaimed \u201ccaliphate\u201d collapse under a wave of offensives.
\nThe extremist group\u2019s austere and terror-ridden rule was marked by beheadings and shootings.
\nIt was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later, but sleeper cells still carry out attacks in both countries.
\nThe group or its branches have also claimed attacks elsewhere this year, including in Afghanistan, Iran and Israel.
\nThe spokesperson did not provide details on the new leader, but said he was a \u201cveteran\u201d militant and called on all groups loyal to IS to pledge their allegiance to its fourth leader.
\nDai\u2019sh previous chief, Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi, was killed in February this year in a US raid in Idlib province in northern Syria.
\nHis predecessor Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed, also in Idlib, in October 2019.
\nHassan Hassan, who authored a book on Dai\u2019sh, said one \u201cunprecedented\u201d but possible scenario was that Hashimi \u201cwas killed \u2018accidentally\u2019 during a raid or fighting without him being known to whoever killed him\u201d.
\nBut \u201cjihadist groups have a long history of claiming leaders\/commanders dead, just to get intelligence\/security agencies off their backs,\u201d he added on Twitter.
\nIn October this year, US forces killed a \u201csenior\u201d Dai\u2019sh member in a pre-dawn raid in northeastern Syria, the US military\u2019s Central Command said at the time.
\nThe US leads a military coalition battling Dai\u2019sh in Syria. The raid targeted \u201cRakkan Wahid al-Shammari, a Dai\u2019sh official known to facilitate the smuggling of weapons and fighters\u201d, CENTCOM said.
\nIt said a later air strike had killed two other senior Dai\u2019sh members.
\nTurkiye said in September that security forces had arrested a \u201csenior executive\u201d of Dai\u2019sh known as Abu Zeyd, whose real name was Bashar Khattab Ghazal al-Sumaidai.
\nAnalyst Hassan said another possible scenario was that Turkiye had in fact captured the Dai\u2019sh leader, but that the group had now announced his death in order to save face. Thousands of suspected militants and their relatives are still detained in camps in Syria and prisons in Iraq.
\nIn January, Dai\u2019sh launched a major attack on a prison housing fellow militants in northeastern Syria, in a jailbreak attempt that triggered a week of deadly clashes.
\nHundreds of Dai\u2019sh prisoners, including senior leaders, were thought to have escaped, with some crossing to neighbouring Turkiye or Turkish-held territory in northern Syria, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
\nThe Pentagon warned Tuesday that a threatened Turkish ground operation in Syria would \u201cseverely jeopardise\u201d gains made in the war against Dai\u2019sh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Abu Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi has been killed in battle, says militant group\u2019s spokesperson Iraq The militant Islamic State or Dai\u2019sh group said on Wednesday that its leader Abu Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi has been killed in battle and announced a replacement. A spokesperson for the group said Hashimi, an Iraqi, was killed \u201cin combat with enemies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298729,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-298699","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n