Turkish Forces Kill Islamic State Leader In Syria

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Turkish forces on Saturday have killed the leader of the Islamic State group during an operation in Syria.

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan revealed this in a TRT Turk television interview that the IS leader, code-named Abu Hussein al-Qurayshi, was killed in a strike conducted on Saturday.

According to New York Post, Erdogan said the Turkish intelligence agency, MIT, had been following him “for a long time.”

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“We will continue our struggle against terrorist organizations without discriminating against any of them,” Erdogan said in the interview.

Turkey has conducted different operations against IS and Kurdish groups along the Syrian border, capturing or killing suspected militants.

The country controls extensive areas of territory in northern Syria following a series of land incursions to drive Kurdish groups away from the Turkish-Syrian border.

Abu Hussein al-Qurayshi was named leader of the militant group after its previous chief was killed in October, with an IS spokesman calling him “one of the veteran warriors and one of the loyal sons of the Islamic State.”

He took over leadership of IS at a time when the extremist group has lost control of the territory it once held in Iraq and Syria.

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However, he had been trying to rise again, with sleeper cells carrying out deadly attacks in both countries.

Islamic State founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was hunted down by US forces in a raid in northwest Syria in October 2019.

His successor, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, was killed in a similar raid in February 2022.

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