ISIS leader detained in Istanbul; Turkish Prez Erdogan confirms 'successful operation'

On September 8, Turkey's security services reportedly detained a "top executive" of the Daesh (ISIS) terrorist organisation, according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Turkish president revealed to reporters on board his flight home from a three-nation visit of the Balkans that the commander's name was Abu Zeyd and his real name was Bashar Khattab Ghazal al-Sumaidai.

Erdogan claimed that Sumaidai was listed as one of the leading executives of the (ISIS) terrorist organisation in a UN Security Council report that was released in July. According to Turkish media, Erdogan said that there are some indications that Abu Hasan al-Hashimi Al-Qurashi, an Iraqi who has recently declared himself the new caliph or leader of the entire Daesh organisation, is in fact Sumaidai. Erdogan only identified Sumaidai as a senior Daesh representative in Syria. Erdogan did not specify when the Daesh leader was apprehended.

The terrorist called himself 'qadi': Erdogan

Turkish media reported Erdogan as saying, "In his interrogation, he also stated that he was a so-called 'qadi' (judge) of the so-called ministry of education and ministry of justice. This terrorist's connections in Syria and Istanbul had been followed for a long time, and intelligence information was obtained that he would enter Turkey illegally. This terrorist was caught in a successful operation of the MIT security service and the Istanbul police."

After a dramatic rise in Iraq and Syria in 2014 that saw it conquer enormous swaths of territory, Daesh's self-proclaimed "caliphate" was shattered by a wave of offensives. It was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later, but the terrorist group's sleeper cells continue to carry out atrocities in both countries. Syria's civil war began in 2011, killing around 500,000 people and displacing roughly half of the country's pre-war population.

Image: AP