Dead IS chief was Iraqi ex-officer nicknamed 'Destroyer'
India Today
Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, the head of the Islamic State group whom the US declared dead in a special-forces raid on Thursday, was nicknamed the "Destroyer".
The head of the 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.
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.
