The leader of the Islamic State organization, Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi, died in combat in northwest Syria, the group said in a statement on Thursday.
In a recorded message posted on its channels on the messaging app Telegram, an IS spokesman said that its leader "was killed after direct clashes" with the jihadist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in the province of Idlib. He did not indicate when he was killed, though.
Abi Hafsan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi was named the fifth leader of the organization by the spokesman.
Following a swift ascent in 2014, that saw it seize huge areas of territory in Iraq and Syria, IS witnessed its self-declared "caliphate" crumble under a barrage of offensives. Mass shootings and beheadings were commonplace under the stern and terror-filled control of the Sunni Muslim extremist organization.
IS said that Abu Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, its former leader, had been killed in November of last year.
In a US raid in the province of Idlib in February of last year, his predecessor, Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi, was killed.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the first "caliph" of the organization, was killed in October 2019 in Idlib.
(Representative Image/ Reuters)
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