ANKARA/BAGHDAD, (Reuters) – ISIS leader Abu Hussein al-Qurashi’s six-month rule ended when he detonated a suicide vest during a Turkish special forces raid in northwest Syria on Saturday after refusing to surrender, a senior Turkish security official said.
The third ISIS leader to die by detonating an explosive vest during a raid since 2019, Qurashi leaves behind an organization that once ruled millions of people via its control of a third of Iraq and Syria but has now been forced underground.
The four-hour raid, led by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT), saw special forces blast their way through a perimeter fence, back door and walls of his hideout in a two-storey building near the town of Jandaris, the security official said.
Two Syrian security sources said Turkish-backed Syrian armed groups set a perimeter around the area while Turkish special forces, who one source said earlier entered Syria in armoured vehicles, raided the house. The MIT declined to comment for this report. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday Qurashi “was neutralized” as part of the intelligence forces’ operation.
Images of the site provided by the security official showed a red-roofed building with most of the walls on its ground floor blown out.
Metal and cinderblock debris lay scattered on a paved patio with a small fountain, and on the brick-red soil of an adjacent field planted with olive trees.
The MIT, which the Turkish source said had been following Qurashi for a long time, conducted the covert operation after determining he would soon relocate, the official said, adding that Qurashi detonated his suicide vest when he realised he would be captured.
There were calls for Qurashi to surrender but no response, the source said.
Like his predecessor, Qurashi never made a public address, a marker of how far the group’s reach has fallen since former leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi climbed the pulpit of a crowded mosque in Iraq in 2014 to declare his self-styled caliphate.
