New Delhi: The Islamic State group on Thursday announced the death of its leader, Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi, stating that he was killed in clashes in northwestern Syria, news agency AFP reported.
In a recorded statement on its channels on the Telegram messaging app, an IS spokesman said that the leader "was killed after direct clashes" with the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Idlib province.
As per the news agency AFP, the spokesman announced the group's new leader. Abi Hafsan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi will be the group's fifth leader.
Its previous leader, Abu Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, as per the group's announcement, died in November of 2022. His predecessor, Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi was killed in February of the same year, during a US raid in Idlib province.
The group’s first leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was killed, also in Idlib, in October 2019.
It appeared to be the militant group's first official announcement on his fate since Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan said in April that Turkish intelligence forces had killed him in Syria.
IS saw a meteoric rise in Iraq and Syria in 2014 that saw it conquer vast swathes of territory. However, the Islamic State soon saw its self-proclaimed "caliphate" collapse under a wave of offensives.
As per the France-based news agency, the extremist group's austere and terror-ridden rule was marked by beheadings and mass shootings.
It was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later, However, despite this the sleeper cells still carry out attacks in both countries.
Its remaining thousands of militants have in recent years mostly hid out in remote hinterlands of both countries, though they are still capable of carrying out hit-and-run attacks, according to Reuters.
The U.S.-led coalition alongside a Kurdish-led alliance known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is still carrying out raids against Islamic State in Syria, as per the agency.