The Islamic State after Abbu Ibrahim Qurayshi

The story so far: U.S. President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that the leader of the Islamic State terrorist group, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, was killed during an American raid in northwe

U.S. President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that the leader of the Islamic State terrorist group, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, was killed during an American raid in northwestern Syria’s Idlib. Mr. Biden said the “horrible terrorist” blew himself up, along with others in the hideout, as the U.S. Special Forces were approaching in. The killing leaves a blow to the IS, which was trying to make a comeback in Iraq and Syria, where it was born almost eight years ago.

Born in Iraq in 1976, Qurayshi, who real name was Amir Muhammad Sa’id Abdal-Rahman al-Mawla, was, like several other IS leaders, an officer in Saddam Hussein’s military. He met Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the founder of the IS, in Camp Bucca, a U.S.-controlled prison in Iraq. Out of Camp Bucca, he joined the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), the predecessor of the IS, in 2007, a year after the ISI’s notorious leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike. Within the IS ranks, Qurayshi rose quickly to become a close aide of Baghdadi. U.S. intelligence agencies say he played a key role in the genocide of the Iraq Yazidis — the killing of thousands of men and the enslavement of women that started in late 2013.