Days after Syrian-Kurdish forces quashed a week-long prison riot orchestrated by ISIS sleeper cells in Hassakeh, north-eastern Syria, US special forces killed the terror group’s leader on Thursday.
Abu Ibrahim Al Hashimi Al Qurayshi, known as both “The Professor” and “The Destroyer”, had been the leader of ISIS since the US assassination of Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi in October 2019.
Al Qurayshi, whose birth name is believed to have been Amir Mohammed Said Abd Al Rahman Al Mawla, led from the shadows and kept a low profile, hoping to avoid the fate of his predecessor.
“He commanded [ISIS] by couriers who came and went and used these innocent people as his shield,” a senior US official said following Al Qurayshi's death.
The US government, which had a $10 million bounty on Al Qurayshi's head, said he was likely born near Tal Afar in northern Iraq in 1976.
He oversaw a group that, despite the fall of its self-proclaimed caliphate in March 2019, managed to not only survive but to thrive, continuing to wreak havoc in far-flung corners of the world.
During Al Qurayshi's leadership, ISIS-Khorasan Province emerged as a serious threat in Afghanistan.
Members of the terror group also captured an entire town in Mozambique, killing at least 55 people and displacing more than 34,000. Mozambique’s military eventually retook the town of Palma but the organisation remains active in East Africa.
Terror experts viewed Al Qurayshi as a formidable leader.
He inherited "an organisation that was on the ropes on some level and [was] able to weather that storm, do a little bit of strategic expansion, if you will, and maintain tactical capability,” said Daniel Milton, director of research at the Combating Terrorism Centre at West Point.
Before he took over ISIS, Al Qurayshi held several high-profile posts and is believed to have spearheaded the group's brutal enslavement of Yazidi women and children.
“He was the driving force behind the genocide of the Yazidi religious minority in north-western Iraq in 2014 and the enslavement of thousands of young Yazidi girls, using rape as a weapon of war," said a US official.
Al Qurayshi spent time in US custody during the war in Iraq after being captured by US forces in Mosul in 2008.
Released interrogation reports show that he provided a treasure trove of information on his fellow group members.
“He was a very kind of savvy political player, willing to kind of turn on his own organisation members if it suited his best interests,” Mr Milton told The National.
He added that Al Qurayshi’s death would not be a silver bullet and that the group’s history suggests it will eventually be rebuilt.
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Iraqi government forces and allied militias take a position in the northern part of Diyala province as part of an assault to retake the city of Tikrit from ISIS, on March 2, 2015. All photos: AFP -
Members of the Iraqi paramilitary Popular Mobilisation units flash the 'V' for victory sign after regaining control of the village of Albu Ajil, near Tikrit, on March 9, 2015. -
Fighters from a Popular Mobilisation unit take part in an exercise during their graduation ceremony in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, on April 9, 2015. -
Iraqi fighters of the Shiite group Asaib Ahl Al Haq (The League of the Righteous) stand guard outside their headquarters on May 18, 2015, in the mainly Shiite southern city of Basra, as Shiite militias converged on Ramadi in a bid to recapture it from ISIS. -
Iraqi government forces and members of the Popular Mobilisation units raise their weapons on the front line during battles with ISIS on the road leading to Saqlawiya, in Iraq's Anbar province, on August 4, 2015. -
An Iraqi Shiite fighter cleans his weapon on his vehicle at the petrochemical plant in the town of Baiji, north of Tikrit, on October 16, 2015. -
Iraqi Shiite fighters fire a rocket during a military operation against ISIS as they advance towards the centre of Baiji, about 200 kilometres north of Baghdad, on October 19, 2015. -
Iraqi Shiite fighters from the Hashed Al Shaabi paramilitaries advance in a desert area near the village of Tall Abtah, south-west of Mosul, on November 28, 2016, during a broad offensive by Iraq forces to retake Mosul from ISIS. -
An Iraqi Shiite fighter from the Hashed Al Shaabi paramilitary forces inspects an underground tunnel in the town of Tal Abtah, south of Tal Afar, on December 10, 2016. -
Iraqi pro-government forces advance towards the Unesco-listed ancient city of Hatra, south-west of Mosul, during an offensive to retake the area from ISIS fighters, on April 26, 2017. -
A fighter from the Hashed Al Sahaabi units helps displaced people who fled from battles to oust ISIS from Hawija cross a river in the area of Zarga, about 35km south-east of Kirkuk, on October 4, 2017. -
Iraqi forces advance towards the city of al-Qaim, in Iraq's western Anbar province near the Syrian border, as they fight against remnant pockets of ISIS forces, on November 3, 2017. -
Iraqi forces ride in the back of pick-up trucks during the advance through Anbar province in the western desert bordering Syria, on November 25, 2017, to flush out remaining ISIS fighters in the region. -
Members of the Iraqi forces and the Hashed Al Shaabi carry their firearms as they stand on an infanty-fighting vehicle near the Iraqi-Syrian border, about 80km west of the border town of al-Qaim, on December 9, 2017. -
Abbas Hamza Hassan, a 56-year-old Iraqi fighter, is pictured on November 13, 2018 while training fellow Hashed members how to use weapons in the western Iraqi province of Anbar.
