ISIS chief Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi eliminated by US forces in Syria, announces Joe Biden
After the killing of Islamic State founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in October 2019, the group named as his successor al-Quraishi, an Iraqi who was once held in US custody.
The leader of terrorist group ISIS, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, died during a U.S. raid in Syria, the White House said Thursday.
Al-Qurayshi detonated a bomb that killed himself and several members of his family, a senior administration official told NBC News.
The operation was the biggest blow to the Jihadist organisation since his predecessor, the better-known Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was killed in a similar raid in the same region of Idlib in 2019.
President Joe Biden said Thursday that the leader of the Islamic State group had been “taken off the battlefield.”
Meanwhile, the senior US official said that at least some of the civilian deaths were the result of al-Qurayshi detonating a bomb.
“At the beginning of the operation, the terrorist target exploded a bomb that killed him and members of his own family, including women and children,” the official said.
The Pentagon said there were no US casualties in the raid.
Al-Qurayshi was previously a senior member in ISIS’ predecessor organization, al-Qaida in Iraq, before joining the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.
He rose through the ranks of the terror group before he was named its leader in October 2019, a few days after his predecessor, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was killed during a U.S. raid.
Under the Trump administration, the United States doubled the bounty for the new ISIS leader to $10 million.
