Berliner Boersenzeitung - Dead IS chief was Iraqi ex-officer nicknamed 'Destroyer'

EUR -
AED 3.993896
AFN 72.852991
ALL 98.24255
AMD 420.905929
ANG 1.960947
AOA 991.671397
ARS 1079.282118
AUD 1.652057
AWG 1.957246
AZN 1.846926
BAM 1.94988
BBD 2.196831
BDT 130.025259
BGN 1.955832
BHD 0.409741
BIF 3147.904053
BMD 1.087359
BND 1.431693
BOB 7.535332
BRL 6.298093
BSD 1.087997
BTN 91.511009
BWP 14.488415
BYN 3.560888
BYR 21312.234691
BZD 2.193202
CAD 1.511924
CDF 3092.448479
CHF 0.939543
CLF 0.037608
CLP 1037.732042
CNY 7.719266
CNH 7.741229
COP 4800.6896
CRC 558.404752
CUC 1.087359
CUP 28.815011
CVE 110.530289
CZK 25.333506
DJF 193.245019
DKK 7.457981
DOP 65.730702
DZD 144.63952
EGP 53.345282
ERN 16.310384
ETB 131.609273
FJD 2.474775
FKP 0.832013
GBP 0.839599
GEL 2.973911
GGP 0.832013
GHS 17.789084
GIP 0.832013
GMD 77.742974
GNF 9383.907106
GTQ 8.406479
GYD 227.834608
HKD 8.45166
HNL 27.25978
HRK 7.490848
HTG 143.185307
HUF 408.145063
IDR 17178.911623
ILS 4.078232
IMP 0.832013
INR 91.505983
IQD 1424.440176
IRR 45783.246635
ISK 148.903211
JEP 0.832013
JMD 171.918078
JOD 0.771043
JPY 165.44929
KES 140.269094
KGS 93.309373
KHR 4430.987743
KMF 492.031196
KPW 978.622776
KRW 1495.237642
KWD 0.333287
KYD 0.906772
KZT 531.655958
LAK 23856.655063
LBP 97427.357908
LKR 318.991581
LRD 208.609712
LSL 19.039377
LTL 3.210688
LVL 0.657733
LYD 5.229955
MAD 10.70719
MDL 19.422571
MGA 5018.161143
MKD 61.586053
MMK 3531.699333
MNT 3694.845616
MOP 8.710995
MRU 43.494145
MUR 49.833341
MVR 16.744658
MWK 1887.108312
MXN 21.86573
MYR 4.761
MZN 69.486158
NAD 19.039896
NGN 1787.389748
NIO 39.987619
NOK 11.964308
NPR 146.417534
NZD 1.821049
OMR 0.418662
PAB 1.088127
PEN 4.09744
PGK 4.359763
PHP 63.5692
PKR 302.122275
PLN 4.357336
PYG 8568.985619
QAR 3.958642
RON 4.975431
RSD 117.031371
RUB 107.647597
RWF 1483.157557
SAR 4.084062
SBD 9.031843
SCR 14.928378
SDG 654.044516
SEK 11.663229
SGD 1.435118
SHP 0.832013
SLE 24.710207
SLL 22801.369244
SOS 620.8821
SRD 37.955351
STD 22506.134126
SVC 9.520098
SYP 2732.022181
SZL 19.039502
THB 36.731166
TJS 11.58804
TMT 3.81663
TND 3.369723
TOP 2.546701
TRY 37.352983
TTD 7.375811
TWD 34.550285
TZS 2925.944714
UAH 45.097205
UGX 3981.911409
USD 1.087359
UYU 45.332377
UZS 13934.505168
VEF 3939014.785334
VES 46.542264
VND 27531.927672
VUV 129.093467
WST 3.045892
XAF 653.989612
XAG 0.032235
XAU 0.0004
XCD 2.938642
XDR 0.817341
XOF 652.963012
XPF 119.331742
YER 271.676051
ZAR 19.039481
ZMK 9787.541457
ZMW 29.187197
ZWL 350.129126
  • RBGPF

    5.4100

    66.41

    +8.15%

  • CMSC

    0.1100

    24.64

    +0.45%

  • CMSD

    0.1103

    24.92

    +0.44%

  • VOD

    -0.0300

    9.32

    -0.32%

  • RYCEF

    0.0200

    7.1

    +0.28%

  • NGG

    0.1900

    64.45

    +0.29%

  • SCS

    0.1100

    12.25

    +0.9%

  • RELX

    -0.0200

    47.06

    -0.04%

  • BCC

    0.0500

    134.26

    +0.04%

  • RIO

    -0.3200

    65.01

    -0.49%

  • JRI

    0.0500

    13.1

    +0.38%

  • BCE

    -2.9800

    29.12

    -10.23%

  • AZN

    0.0100

    71.43

    +0.01%

  • BTI

    0.0400

    35.11

    +0.11%

  • BP

    0.5000

    29.73

    +1.68%

  • GSK

    0.0900

    36.97

    +0.24%

Dead IS chief was Iraqi ex-officer nicknamed 'Destroyer'
Dead IS chief was Iraqi ex-officer nicknamed 'Destroyer'

Dead IS chief was Iraqi ex-officer nicknamed 'Destroyer'

The head of Islamic State group, whom the US declared dead in a special-forces raid Thursday, was nicknamed the "Destroyer" and presided over massacres of Yazidis before assuming the leadership.

Text size:

Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, also known as Amir Mohammed Said Abd al-Rahman al-Mawla, took over the jihadist network two years ago after founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi blew himself up in a US special forces raid in October 2019.

Considered a low-profile but brutal operator, Qurashi had largely flown under the radar of Iraqi and US intelligence until that point.

He took over at a time when IS had been weakened by years of US-led assaults and the loss of its self-proclaimed "caliphate" in Syria and northern Iraq.

The US State Department slapped a $10 million bounty on his head and placed him on its "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" list.

Born in the northern Iraq town of Tal Afar and thought to be in his mid-40s, his ascension in the ranks of the extremist group was rare for a non-Arab, born into a Turkmen family.

Serving in the Iraqi army under Saddam Hussein, the late dictator toppled by the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Qurashi joined the ranks of Al-Qaeda after Hussein was captured by US troops in 2003, according to the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) think-tank.

In 2004, he was detained by US forces at the infamous Camp Bucca prison in southern Iraq, where Baghdadi and host of future Islamic State figures met.

- 'Brutal policymaker' -

After both men were freed, Qurashi remained at Baghdadi's side as he took the reins of the Iraqi branch of Al-Qaeda in 2010, then defected to create the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), later the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

In 2014, Qurashi helped Baghdadi take control of the northern city of Mosul, the CEP said.

The think-tank said Qurashi "quickly established himself among the insurgency's senior ranks and was nicknamed the 'Professor' and the 'Destroyer'".

He was well respected among IS members as a "brutal policymaker" and was responsible for "eliminating those who opposed Baghdadi's leadership", it said.

He is probably best known for playing "a major role in the jihadist campaign of liquidation of the Yazidi minority (of Iraq) through massacres, expulsion and sexual slavery," said Jean-Pierre Filiu, a jihadism analyst at the Sciences Po university in Paris.

On Thursday, US President Joe Biden said that a global "terrorist threat" had been removed when Qurashi blew himself up after US special forces swooped on his Syrian hideout in an "incredibly challenging" night-time helicopter raid.

Hans-Jakob Schindler, a former UN official and director of CEP, called his death a "a major setback for ISIS" in terms of losing a second leader, but doubted it would be a game changer.

IS is thought to prepare for the killings of its leaders with plans for who will take over.

- Global spread -

Schindler said Quraishi "was not a very transformational leader" because IS had already started to shift from a group that controlled territory in Iraq and Syria to an international network of jihadist organisations under Baghdadi.

But Filiu argued that Qurashi's assassination could be "harder to overcome" than Baghdadi's.

He was "a genuine operational chief whose elimination risks preventing the resurgence of the jihadist group, at least temporarily."

Damien Ferre, director of the Jihad Analytics consultancy, said that Qurashi's legacy would be the reinforcement of the Afghan branch of IS, which has been increasingly active since the United States agreed in 2020 to withdraw its troops from the country.

Other researchers also see the rise of an IS branch around Lake Chad in west Africa as significant, with the group managing to draw fighters from the ranks of the Nigerian terror group Boko Haram.

"On the operational front during his time, Islamic State regained momentum in 2020 before seeing the quality and the quantity of its attacks fall last year," said Ferre.

On January 20, IS fighters launched their biggest assault since the loss of their caliphate nearly three years ago, attacking the Ghwayran prison in the Kurdish-controlled northeast Syrian city of Hasakeh to free fellow jihadists, sparking battles that left over 370 dead.

(L.Kaufmann--BBZ)