Iraqi intelligence ‘facilitated’ assassination of ISIS chief in Syria: Military

The military extended its appreciation to the US-led International Coalition for the “elimination of this terrorist.”

Kurdistan 24 2022/02/04 12:09

This image released by the US Department of Defense shows the compound housing ISIS emir Al-Qurayshi in northwest Syria prior to a raid executed by US forces, Feb. 3, 2022. (Photo: US Department of Defense / HO / AFP)

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Iraqi military announced that the country’s intelligence service had obtained “sensitive” information on the whereabouts of ISIS leader Hajji Abdulla, who was killed in a US raid in northwest Syria on Thursday.

The Iraqi National Intelligence Service “obtained sensitive and important information, which facilitated reaching to Qardash,” using one of the terrorist’s nicknames, the Joint Operations said in a statement on Thursday.

The military extended its appreciation to the US-led International Coalition for the “elimination of this terrorist.”

On Thursday, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi said that his country’s security forces had played a “pivotal role” in intelligence gathering on the group’s rank and file and finally its leader.

“The removal of the terrorist Abu Ibrahim al-Qurayshi from a region he did so much to harm is welcomed by our people and our Yazidi brothers and sisters in particular,” Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani tweeted on Thursday.

Barzani congratulated the US forces and President Joe Biden for the “successful mission”, urging the country and the US-led coalition to continue supporting Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi forces.

“This terror group is far from over,” he added.

President Biden announced on Thursday that his country’s special forces had killed the ISIS leader known by his nom de guerre Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi (Hajji Abdulla) in a farmhouse in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province.

According to preliminary reports, at least 13 people, including Al-Quraishi, were killed in the raid, including women and children.

Al-Quraishi blew himself up, killing his family members, Biden said.

The ISIS leader had replaced former ISIS leader Abu Bakir al-Baghdadi, who also blew himself up in a similar US raid in Idlib province in 2019.

Previously a prisoner in the custody of US forces in Iraq, al-Qurayshi later became one of the central figures of the terror group that ran a third of Iraq in 2014. Intelligence reports say that he had a leading role in several atrocities committed by ISIS, including the enslavement and genocide of Yezidis.