Abu Ibrahim al-Hachimi al-Qouachchi would have been dead to avoid being captured by a detachment of US special forces, heliportes in northwestern Syria.
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His name was unknown to the general public. He will certainly have a successor, but his disappearance is nevertheless a success for the White House. The leader of the organization Jihadiste Islamic State (EI), nicknamed Abu Ibrahim al-Hachimi al-Qouachchi, found death in an American military operation, conducted Thursday, February 3, on the ground, in the north-west of the Syria.
The successor of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, killed in a similar attack, in October 2019, would have been blown up with an explosive charge, to avoid being captured. It has resided for months in a multi-storey house, with his family, atmate, in the province of Idlib, a zone controlled by Hayat Tahrir Al-Cham (HTC), the former Syrian branch of Al-Qaida . A premium of $ 10 million (€ 8.7 million) had been offered by the United States for its neutralization.
“This operation testifies to America’s range and capabilities to eliminate terrorist threats, regardless of where they are trying to hide,” said Joe Biden, during the course of A speech delivered in the morning at the White House. In April 2021, the Director of the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), William Burns, had concerned about the risk that Afghanistan’s future military withdrawal does not lead to a decline in the collection of information on Al-Qaida and the EI. The ATM operation is also used to confirm the continued commitment of the United States in the anti-terrorism control in the Middle East.
“The driving force in the genocide of the yézidis”
According to the US President, Al-Qouachchi “was the driving force in the genocide of the Yézidi people in northwestern Iraq in 2014”, an allusion to the massacres perpetrated by the EI against the This Iraqi religious minority. Joe Biden also attributed to this “horrible terrorist leader” a key role in the spectacular but not conclusive attack, recently conducted by the EI against Ghwayran Prison, under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces (FDS, in Kurdish Dominant ) in Hassake, in the north-east of Syria. The assault, which lasted more than a week and resulted in the death of 373 persons including 268 assailants, constitutes the most important operation conducted by the jihadist organization since the crushing of its self-proclaimed caliphate in 2019, under the blows of the FDS and the international anti-EI coalition.
According to the organization of Syrian white helmets, 13 civilians would have been killed during Operation Thursday. On the American side, the full responsibility for these losses are attributed to a lower number of persons, without more precision – at the attitude of the LEADER of the EI and one of its lieutenants. Living on the third floor of the building, Al-Qouachchi never went out, except to sometimes go on the roof. He used messengers to communicate with his network of correspondents. “In a ultimate and desperate happiness gesture”, according to Joe Biden’s expression, he would have operated a bomb at the beginning of the operation, thus provoking his own death as well as that of his family. One of his lieutenants on the second floor would have tried to resist, before being killed, with his loved ones.
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