Turkish forces have killed the suspected leader of Islamic State (IS) in Syria, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced.
Abu Hussein al-Qurayshi is believed to have
taken over the group after his predecessor died in a raid in February.
Mr Erdogan told broadcaster TRT Turk the IS
leader was “neutralised” in a Turkish MIT intelligence agency operation on
Saturday.
The BBC has been unable to independently
verify the claim.
The MIT intelligence agency had been following
him for a “long time”, Mr Erdogan said.
“We will continue our struggle with terrorist
organisations without any discrimination,” Mr Erdogan said.
In February, then-IS leader Abu Ibrahim
al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi set off a blast killing himself and his family as US
special forces rounded on his hideout after a gunfight.
That operation “removed a major terrorist
threat to the world”, US President Joe Biden said at the time.
In November, the jihadist group announced the
death of its leader, Abu al-Hassan al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi. The US said he was
killed in an operation by the rebel Free Syrian Army in south-west Syria in
mid-October.
IS once held 88,000sq km (34,000sq miles) of
territory stretching from north-eastern Syria across northern Iraq and imposed
its brutal rule on almost eight million people.
The group was driven from its last piece of
territory in 2019, but the UN warned in July that it remained a persistent
threat.
It is estimated to have between 6,000 and
10,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq, who are based mostly in rural areas and
continue to carry out hit-and-run attacks, ambushes and roadside bombings.
IS regional affiliates also pose threats in
other conflict zones across the world. The UN said the most vigorous and
well-established networks were based in Afghanistan, Somalia and the Lake Chad
basin.
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