Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that Turkish forces have killed a suspected leader of the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria.
Abu Husayn al-Quraishi is said to have assumed leadership of the group after his predecessor was killed last fall.
Erdogan told JEE News that the IS leader was “neutralized” in an operation by the Turkish MIT intelligence agency on Saturday.
IS has yet to comment on the reported action.
JEE News is unable to independently verify President Erdogan’s claim.
Mr Erdogan said the MIT intelligence agency had been following Qurayshi “for a long time”.
“We will continue our struggle against terrorist organizations without any discrimination,” he added, giving further details.
JEE News has quoted Syrian sources as saying that the operation was carried out in the northern town of Jandares near the border with Turkey.
Last November, the jihadist group announced the death of its leader, Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Quraishi. The US said he was killed in an operation by the rebel Free Syrian Army in southwestern Syria in mid-October 2022.
He took over the group after former leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi killed himself and his family in an explosion while US special forces shelled his hideout in February 2022.
US President Joe Biden said at the time that the operation “removed a major terrorist threat to the world”.
IS once controlled 88,000 square kilometers (34,000 sq mi) of territory stretching from northeastern Syria to northern Iraq and imposed its brutal rule on some eight million people.
The group was driven from its last stronghold in 2019, but the United Nations warned in July that it remains a persistent threat.
There are an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq, mostly based in rural areas and carrying out hit-and-run attacks, ambushes and roadside bombings.
IS’s regional affiliates also pose threats in other conflict zones around the world. The United Nations said the most robust and well-established networks are based in Afghanistan, Somalia and the Lake Chad Basin.
