(Damascus) Syrian authorities said on Friday that the leader of the Islamic State (IS) group had been killed during an operation carried out by the Syrian army and local fighters in mid-October in southern Syria.
The death of Abu Hassan al-Hachimi al-Qurachi was announced on Wednesday by IS, which did not specify the date or place of death.
The US military command for the Middle East (CENTCOM) claimed that Hashimi had been killed during an operation carried out in mid-October by former Syrian rebels in the province of Deraa, under the control of the forces of the Syrian power.
The Syrian government had indicated that it had launched a joint operation against ISIS in mid-October with former rebels in the province, and the official Sana agency had identified one of the jihadists as Abu Abdel Rahman al-Iraqi.
On Friday, a Syrian security source quoted by Sana, confirmed that Hachimi was in fact “the same person known as Abu Abdel Rahman al-Iraqi”.
He was “killed during an operation” against IS led by “the Syrian army with local groups in the town of Jassem on October 15”, the security source said.
Deraa province was the cradle of the uprising in Syria in 2011, but returned to the control of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in 2018 under a deal backed by Russia, an ally of the Damascus regime.
The rebels were allowed to keep small arms. And jihadists have claimed responsibility for attacks in the province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) claimed that Hachimi blew himself up in a house where he was holed up.
After a meteoric rise in power in 2014 and the conquest of vast territories in Iraq and Syria, the IS was defeated under the blow of successive offensives, in 2017 in Iraq and in 2019 in Syria.
But despite the loss of its strongholds in these two countries, the group continues to claim attacks there through sleeper cells.