Syria’s main al-Qaida-linked group denies it was behind the killing of an ISIS leader

Syria’s main insurgent al-Qaida-linked group denied it was behind the killing of the ISIS leader in the country’s northwest saying it would have otherwise claimed responsibility.

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The security arm of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, made the announcement Friday night, a day after ISIS blamed the Syrian insurgent group for the death of its little-known leader, Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurayshi, who headed the extremist organization since November.

“We categorically deny this claim,” the spokesman of HTS, General Security Diaa al-Omar, said in a terse statement.

He said HTS would continue to fight “evil acts” by ISIS in rebel-held parts of Syria, adding that had his group been behind al-Qurayshi’s death “we would have given the good news to Muslims and announced it directly.”

Al-Qurayshi was the fourth IS leader to be killed since the group was founded by Iraqi militant Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and declared a caliphate in large parts of Syr-ia and Iraq in June 2014 before its defeat years later.

Abu Hafs al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi was named the group’s new leader on Thursday.

The Islamic State group broke away from al-Qaida a decade ago and attracted supporters from around the world. Despite its defeat in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later, IS militants still car-ry out deadly attacks in both countries and elsewhere.

Since IS broke away from al-Qaida, both groups fought deadly battles over the past years in northern Syria.

In April, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkish intelligence agents had killed al-Qurayshi in northern Syria — a statement that IS denied say-ing he was killed by HTS and was later handed over to Turkish authorities.

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