Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Sunday night that Turkish intelligence forces had killed ISIS leader Abu Husseini al-Qurashi.
The official statement from the Anadolu state news agency said: “Turkey neutralized Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi, the so-called leader of the Daesh/ISIS terrorist organization, during an operation in Syria on Saturday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced. The National Intelligence Organization (MIT) had been following the so-called leader of Daesh, codenamed Abu Hussein al-Qurayshi, for a long time.”
“We will continue our struggle with terrorist organizations without any discrimination,” President Erdogan told TRT TV on Sunday.
Al-Qurashi became the leader of ISIS in November 2022 after his predecessor had been killed.
The compound allegedly housing #ISIS’s global leader was located outside the town of #Jinderes, surrounded by fields of olive trees.
The area was hit very hard by the earthquake, resulting in many visits by foreign media & some aid groups.
See these images from @faizaldoghim060 pic.twitter.com/2M3oqTesTk
— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) April 30, 2023
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, even though the Counter-ISIS International Coalition command and the leaders of the Syrian Democratic Forces announced the elimination of the so-called Caliphate of the “Islamic State” in March 2019, recent developments on the ground indicate that ISIS has not been fully eliminated.
ISIS continues launching military operations and counter-attacks which are met with security campaigns by Coalition forces and their Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) partner throughout SDF-controlled areas, in addition to military operations by Russian and regime forces against ISIS cells in areas under their control. However, ISIS cells are still able to exploit opportunities to create a security vacuum and carry out assassinations, which clearly indicates that the “Islamic State” is still alive and kicking.
In the 105th month after the declaration of “Al-Baghdadi’s Caliphate,” ISIS carried out 20 operations, including armed attacks and explosions, in areas controlled by SDF. Those operations left 13 people dead: 11 members of the Internal Security Forces (Asayish) which are operating in areas controlled by the Autonomous Administration and two ISIS members.
