BEIRUT: Daesh announced on Thursday the death of its leader Abu Al-Hussein Al-Husseini Al-Qurashi, who it said was killed in clashes in northwestern Syria.
The leader “was killed after direct clashes” with the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group in Idlib province, a Daesh spokesman said in a recorded message on its channels on the Telegram messaging app, without specifying when he was killed.
The spokesman announced the group’s new leader — its fifth — as Abu Hafs Al-Hashimi Al-Qurashi.
After a meteoric rise in Iraq and Syria in 2014 that saw it conquer vast swathes of territory, Daesh saw its self-proclaimed “caliphate” collapse under a wave of offensives.
The extremist group’s austere and terror-ridden rule was marked by beheadings and mass shootings.
It was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later, but sleeper cells still carry out attacks in both countries.
In November last year, Daesh said its previous leader, Abu Hasan Al-Hashimi Al-Qurashi, had been killed.
His predecessor, Abu Ibrahim Al-Qurashi, was killed in February last year in a US raid in Idlib province.
The group’s first “caliph,” Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, was killed, also in Idlib, in October 2019.
Daesh confirms death of its leader, names his replacement
https://arab.news/zjhpb
Daesh confirms death of its leader, names his replacement
- The leader “was killed after direct clashes” with the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group in Idlib province
Israeli strike kills 2 teenagers in Gaza
- Palestinian death toll since the start of the war in October 2023 rises to 71,654
GAZA: The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said on Saturday that Israeli fire had killed three people, including two children, in two separate incidents in the northern Gaza Strip.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli forces killed the two teenagers in a drone strike, while the military claimed it eliminated two “terrorists” who planted an explosive device near troops.
The civil defense agency, which operates as a rescue service, said the drone killed the two near Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza.
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Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital said on Saturday it received the two bodies, adding they were two boys aged 13 and 15.
The territory’s Al-Shifa Hospital said it received the two bodies, adding they were two boys aged 13 and 15.
The military said the pair had posed an “immediate threat” to its soldiers.
“Earlier today ... troops operating in the northern Gaza Strip identified several terrorists who crossed the Yellow Line, planted an explosive device in the area, and approached the troops, posing an immediate threat to them,” the military said in a statement.
Under a US-brokered ceasefire that came into effect on Oct. 10, Israeli forces have withdrawn to positions behind a so-called “Yellow Line” in Gaza, though they remain in control of more than half of the territory.
“Following the identification, the (Israeli air force) struck and eliminated the terrorists in order to remove the threat,” the military said.
A military press officer claimed that its troops had “killed two terrorists and not children,” without specifying the ages of those killed.
The civil defense said another fatality was also reported in a separate incident when an Israeli quadcopter struck a group of civilians in Jabalia, also in northern Gaza.
It did not provide details on the person killed in that incident. The press officer said the military had only one incident report.
US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were in Israel on Saturday to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, mainly to discuss Gaza, two people briefed on the matter said.
Gaza has been reduced to rubble in the war that was triggered by an attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Since the beginning of the war, the death toll in Gaza now stands at 71,654 people, with 481 deaths since the October ceasefire, according to Health Ministry data.
The ceasefire has largely halted fighting between Israel and Hamas, but both sides have accused each other of violating its terms.
