IS chief killed by Turkish secret service in Syria, says Erdogan

The suspected leader of the Islamic State terrorist militia has been killed in Syria in an operation by the Turkish secret service MIT, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday.

“The alleged leader of Daesh, codenamed Abu Hussein al-Qurashi, was neutralized yesterday in an operation conducted by MIT in Syria,” he announced on TV, using the Arabic acronym for the organization “Islamic State.”

The Islamic State group announced the death of its former leader Abu Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi on November 30 and replaced him with Abu Hussein al-Qurashi.

An AFP correspondent in northern Syria said Turkish intelligence agents and local military police, with Turkey’s support, cordoned off a zone in Jindires in the northwestern Afrin region on Saturday.

Local residents told AFP that an operation targeted an abandoned farm used as an Islamic school.

Turkey has been stationing troops in northern Syria since 2020 and, with the help of Syrian auxiliaries, controls entire zones.

The United States introduced a helicopter attack in northern Syria in an operation in mid-April and said the Islamic State group was planning attacks in Europe and the Middle East.

US Central Command said they killed a senior leader of the IS group in the operation. They called him Abd-al Hadi Mahmoud al-Haji Ali.

Suspected Islamic State militants killed at least 41 people, including 24 civilians, in Syria on April 16.

In the first week of April, US forces claimed to have killed an ISIS group leader responsible for planning attacks in Europe, naming him Khalid Aydd Ahmad al-Jabouri.

At the peak of its power, controlling parts of Iraq and Syria, the IS group claimed responsibility for a series of attacks in Europe.

Washington announced this in October 2019 killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an operation in north-west Syria.

Despite being driven out of much of the territory it once controlled, the Islamic State group is still launching attacks in Syria.