DLNews Staff:

ISIS leader al-Kurashi is dead: The jihadist militia Islamic State announced the death of its leader on Thursday.

Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Kurashi was killed in "direct fighting" with the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Syria's Idlib province, an ISIS spokesman said in an audio message circulated on the online service Telegram.

The spokesman did not provide any information about the time of death. Al-Kurashi was appointed ISIS chief on December 30, 2022.

Abu al-Hussein took over leadership of the Islamic State after the death of the previous leader Abu al-Hasan. He was proclaimed caliph by Islamic State official spokesman Abu Umar al-Muhajir in a widely circulated audio message.

The death of the so-called caliph has been suspected before. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced at the end of April 2022 that the Turkish secret service MIT had "neutralized" the "suspected" ISIS leader Abu Hussein al-Kurashi in Syria.

It was said that a confrontation broke out during the attempted arrest of a senior ISIS member involving Turkey's MIT near the northern Syrian city of Jindir. After that, the ISIS Caliph is said to have blown himself up.

However, a high-ranking US official later contradicted this account. The government official claimed that al-Kurashi was still alive.

And as early as February 27, Iraqi media reported on the killing of Abu al-Hussein during an operation by the Iraqi army in the Anbar desert. However, these reports have not been confirmed by Iraqi military officials.

The Islamic State has long been considered weakened. After the "theocracy" set up by the terrorists was destroyed in large parts of Syria and Iraq in 2019, the first "Caliph," Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (48), blew himself up in the same year as US special forces were hunting him made.