The jihadist militia Islamic State (IS) has announced the death of its leader and appointed his successor. Iraqi Abu Hassan al-Hashimi al-Kurashi was killed “in battle against the enemies of God,” a militia spokesman said Wednesday, without providing any information on the time and circumstances of the death. He added that Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Kurashi had been appointed as the new “Muslim caliph”.
After a meteoric rise in 2014 in Iraq and Syria, with IS taking over large parts of the country, the self-proclaimed “caliphate” is considered defeated. IS was driven out of Iraq in 2017 and from Syria two years later. However, sleeper cells of the extremist group still carry out attacks.
The militia had been repeatedly destabilized by the death or capture of its leaders. Earlier this year, leader Abu Ibrahim al-Kurashi was killed in a US attack in the northern Syrian province of Idlib. His predecessor Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was also killed in Idlib in October 2019. (AFP/channel)