“Turkey Reveals Details of Raid Leading to the Killing of ISIS Leader Who Detonated a Suicide Vest”

Abu al-Hussain al-Qurashi is the third ISIS leader to be killed by detonating an explosive vest during a raid since 2019. The organization, which once ruled millions of people during its control of a third of the territory of Iraq and Syria, has now gone underground.

On Sunday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that al-Qurashi had been “neutralized” as part of an intelligence operation, while the latter refused to comment on this report.

How did the raid take place?

• A senior Turkish security official revealed the details of the raid, and the circumstances surrounding the killing of al-Qurashi, saying that “the raid lasted 4 hours, and was led by the Turkish National Intelligence.”
• “The special forces stormed an external fence, a back door, and the walls of his hideout in a two-storey building, near the town of Jenderes,” according to the source.
• Two Syrian security sources said that “Turkish-backed Syrian armed factions cordoned off the area during the raid on the building by Turkish special forces, which a source said earlier had entered Syria with armored cars,” according to Reuters.

• Pictures of the site, provided by the security official, showed a red-roofed building with most of its ground floor walls destroyed.
• Pieces of metal and building blocks litter a courtyard with a small fountain and a nearby field of olive trees.
• The official explained that the intelligence services, which had been “monitoring al-Qurashi for a long time, carried out the secret operation after making sure that he would leave the site soon.”
• Al-Qurashi detonated his suicide vest when he realized that he would be captured, especially after the Special Forces asked him to surrender, according to the source.

Like his predecessor in the leadership of the organization, al-Qurashi did not address any public speech, which indicates the extent of the decline in the influence of the organization compared to his position when its former leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ascended the pulpit in a crowded mosque in Iraq in 2014, to declare himself “caliph”.

“last safe haven”

• Al-Qurashi is the latest ISIS leader to be captured or killed in northwest Syria, a small area controlled by conflicting forces, including militant groups and Turkish-backed factions.
• This region has become the most important safe haven for ISIS in the Middle East, after its defeat in Iraq in 2017 and Syria in 2019, and its elements infiltrate across the 600-kilometer-long Iraqi-Syrian border.
• Researcher Nawar Shaaban of the Omran Center for Strategic Studies said, “There are a lot of sleeper cells in these areas that could facilitate the entry of more ISIS leaders, in addition to a lot of checkpoints that can be passed easily for money.”
• For his part, an Iraqi intelligence official said: “The only safe haven for prominent ISIS leaders is Syria, specifically the areas bordering Turkey.”

Turkish-Iraqi cooperation

• Iraqi intelligence cooperation with Turkey played a major role in the recent operations targeting senior leaders of the organization, according to the official and another Iraqi intelligence official who follows the activities of senior ISIS leaders in Iraq, Syria and Turkey.
• The cooperation helped Türkiye to roughly locate al-Qurashi in Syria.
• Two Iraqi officials said that Turkey “facilitated the entry of Iraqi security personnel into northwestern Syria, and lured former ISIS leader Khaled al-Jubouri from Turkey to Syria, where he was killed in an American drone strike last month.”

• The sources indicated that armed groups backed by Turkey arrested, during last month’s operation, two members of the organization who were stationed in Afrin and in a village near Jenderes, and were trying to deliver a message from al-Qurashi to al-Jubouri.
• One source said, “It was a warning sign that al-Qurashi was probably hiding in that area.”
• The source stated that “the United States also helped by providing intelligence information it obtained using advanced systems, which managed to intercept ISIS communications in Syria.”

After “Qureshi”

• After al-Qurashi’s departure, analysts expect ISIS to eventually announce a new leader.
• This will become the fourth leader in 4 years for the organization, whose operations have declined significantly in the regions in which it is located, especially the Middle East and Africa.