Abu Hasan al-Qurashi, the leader of the Islamic State, was killed and replaced

On Wednesday, the Islamic State organisation (ISIS) declared the death in battle of its commander Abu Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi and named a replacement.

Hashimi, an Iraqi, was murdered "in fight with enemies of God," according to a terrorist organisation official, who made no more mention of the occasion or details of his passing. The group's new head, according to the group's spokesman in an audio message, is Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi.

A tribe of the Prophet Mohammed is referred to as Qurashi, and ISIS leaders must be descended from this clan.

ISIS saw its self-declared "caliphate" collapse under a wave of offensives in 2015 after a meteoric rise in 2014 that saw it conquer vast swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria. 

Although the Sunni Muslim extremist organisation was defeated in Syria and Iraq in 2017 and 2018, respectively, sleeper cells of the group continue to carry out attacks in both nations and make claims of attacks across the globe. Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi, the previous commander of ISIS, was assassinated earlier this year during a US operation in the Syrian region of Idlib.

In October 2019, his predecessor Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was assassinated there as well.