New ISIS Leader TAKEN DOWN – They Finally Got Him!
(RightWing.org) – In 2011, It appeared that much of the Middle East was settling down after years of strife and war as the US War on Terror tried to stamp out Islamic militants in the wake of al Qaeda’s collapse. That’s when ISIS rose in its shadows as the militant group took advantage of instability in Syria and Iraq and began overtaking large swaths of land.
On June 29, 2014, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi formed the caliphate and eventually overtook much of Syria and part of Iraq. In December 2019, Baghdadi killed himself as US forces closed in on him. That all but left ISIS’s caliphate defeated, though not eradicated, and under the leadership of Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi. who died in a US operation in February 2022 when he blew himself and several family members up with a suicide bomb to avoid capture. Now, it appears Turkey has captured ISIS’ newest leader, Abu al-Hassan al-Qurayshi, whose relationship to Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi is not known.
ISIS Leader Captured in Turkey
The media in the Middle East is reporting that Turkey captured ISIS leader Abu al-Hassan al-Qurayshi in a raid in Istanbul. According to the Jerusalem Post, on Thursday, May 26, the Turkish news outlet Odatv reported that authorities captured al-Qurayshi after police surveilled the ISIS leader over a long but unspecified period of time. The police reportedly said they didn’t fire a single bullet in the raid on a home where al-Qurayshi was staying and no casualties were reported.
Turkey Begins Crackdown on ISIS
In recent years, the Turkish government has had numerous encounters with ISIS militants both at home and in Syria. Since the caliphate’s fall, ISIS largely attacked Turkey’s arch enemies in northern Iraq. As the largely defeated terrorist group targeted the Kurds in southern Turkey, ISIS tried to signal to Istanbul that it had the resources to conduct operations inside the country without targeting Turks.
However, some in the West grew concerned that Turkey was turning a blind eye to ISIS and may have even actively supported them in raids on Kurdish communities. In early 2022, they began cracking down on ISIS after many NATO countries started applying pressure on the military alliance member. The Turkish media said the government raided terrorist cells, arrested ISIS members, and began making it harder for them to slip in and out of Syria.
Copyright 2022, RightWing.org
