The Islamic State (IS) announced this Wednesday (30) the death of Abu al Hasan al Hashimi al Qurashi, leader of the terrorist group since March, and designated Abu al Hussein al Husseini al Qurashi as the new “caliph”, according to an audio released by the audiovisual production company “Al Furqan”, linked to the jihadists.
“I regret to announce to the Muslims and the soldiers of the Islamic caliphate the death of prince of believers, Abu al Hasan al Hashimi al Qurashi, during a battle in which he was fighting the enemies of Allah,” the group’s spokesman, Abu Omar al Mohajer, said in the audio.
He also stated that after a meeting of the organization’s leadership, it was decided “to appoint Abu al Hussein al Husseini al Qurashi as the Caliph of the Muslims”, a reference to the code name of the new leader, whose real name and previous role in the terrorist organization are still unclear. unknown.
The spokesperson did not give details on how or where the leader of the organization died, who was unknown. known since his appointment in March following the death of his predecessor in a US operation in Syria.
The latest information about him was reported in June by the Turkish news portal “Odatv”, which said Qurashi had been arrested in Istanbul a month earlier in an international operation prepared in secret, but this has not been officially confirmed.
This is the second death of an Islamic State leader in a year. The former, Abu Ibrahim al Hashimi al Qurashi, was killed on February 3 in an operation by US special forces in a house in Idlib province, in northwest Syria.
He had been proclaimed caliph by the Islamic State in 2019, after the death of his predecessor, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, in another operation by American forces, but, during his time at the head of a weakened organization, stripped of the vast territories he reached to conquer in Syria and Iraq, his face and voice were not known.
Since Baghdadi’s death, the leaders of the Islamic State have been given the name Qurashi, a reference to the tribe of Quraish, to which Mohammed belonged.