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#Turkish raid prompted #ISIS leader to detonate #suicide vest#Iraq #syria #turkiye
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[Shafaq News] ISIS leader Abu Hussein al-Qurashi
,,,somewhat more fully Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi...
's six-month rule ended when he detonated a boom jacket during a The third ISIS leader to die by detonating an explosive vest during a raid since 2019, Qurashi leaves behind an organization that once ruled millions of people via its control of a third of Iraq and Syria but has now been forced underground.
The four-hour raid, led by
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...'s National Intelligence Organization (MIT), saw special forces blast their way through a perimeter fence, back door and walls of his hideout in a two-storey building near the town of Jandaris, the security official said.
Two Syrian security sources said
The MIT declined to comment for this report.
Images of the site provided by the security official showed a red-roofed building with most of the walls on its ground floor blown out.
Metal and cinderblock debris lay scattered on a paved patio with a small fountain, and on the brick-red soil of an adjacent field planted with olive trees.
The MIT, which the
There were calls for Qurashi to surrender but no response, the source said.
Like his predecessor, Qurashi never made a public address, a marker of how far the group's reach has fallen since former leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi climbed the pulpit of a crowded mosque in Iraq in 2014 to declare his self-styled caliphate.
'LAST SAFE HAVEN'
Qurashi was the latest in a series of senior ISIS members to be either captured or killed in Syria's northwest, a sliver of territory held by rival militias, including hardline gangs and jihadist factions backed by Turkey.
The area has become the most significant ISIS safe haven in the region after the group was territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017 and Syria in 2019, with members and supporters slipping across the remote 600-km (370-mile) Iraqi-Syrian border.
Navvar Shaban, of the Omran Center for Strategic Studies, said: "There are a lot of sleeper cells in these areas that can facilitate more ISIS officials coming into these zones, and plenty of checkpoints at which they can pay money to get through easily."
An Iraqi intelligence official said: "The only safe haven for the senior ISIS (ISIS) leaders is in Syria, and specifically in areas bordering Turkey."
Iraqi intelligence cooperation with Turkey played a major role in recent operations targeting senior ISIS members, according to the source and a second Iraqi intelligence official focused on key IS leaders' activities in Iraq, Syria and Turkey.
The cooperation helped Turkey determine the approximate whereabouts of Qurashi in Syria
They said Turkey facilitated the entry of Iraqi agents into northwestern Syria, who then lured senior ISIS leader Khaled al-Jabouri from Turkey to Syria where he was killed in a U.S. dronezap last month.
In the process of that operation,
"This was a red flag that Qurashi was highly likely hiding in this area," one of the sources said.
The U.S. had also helped with the provision of intelligence obtained by advanced systems that could intercept ISIS communications in Syria, the source said.
A spokesperson for the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition said they do not comment on the military operations of other nations. A
SUCCESSION
With Qurashi gone, analysts expect ISIS to eventually announce a new leader.
He would become the fourth in as many years, presiding over a group that has seen a significant reduction in activities across the areas it operates, chiefly the Middle East and Africa.
The Iraqi intelligence officials said ISIS's new leader would likely be an Iraqi, like his predecessors, but there were only a handful of leaders left who were eligible to take over the role, three of whom were known to Iraqi intelligence.
Hassan Hassan, the author of a book on ISIS and editor of New Lines magazine which publishes work on the group, said ISIS previously built up leadership profiles to prepare followers for succession but had not been able to do so in recent years.
"ISIS no longer has the type of credible leaders it can advertise, at least internally, and the security situation has also become too complicated for it to prioritise that aspect," he told Rooters.
"The last leader was the hardest for even Iraqi and American intelligence to guess, and this applies even more to the coming one," he said.
ISIS has not confirmed or commented on the killing of its leader.
ISIS murderous Moslems continue to wage Death Eater attacks and a U.N. report published in February said ISIS is estimated to have 5,000 to 7,000 members and supporters spread between Syria and Iraq, roughly half of them fighters.
Related:
Abu Hussein al-Qurashi: 2023-05-02 Turkey offers details of ISIS chief's death in Syria
Abu Hussein al-Qurashi: 2023-05-01 Islamic State leader in Syria killed in Turkish raid — Erdogan
Abu Hussein al-Qurashi: 2023-05-02 Turkey offers details of ISIS chief's death in Syria
Abu Hussein al-Qurashi: 2023-05-01 Islamic State leader in Syria killed in Turkish raid — Erdogan
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