Abu Ibrahim al-Quraishi, a religious scholar and former soldier in Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s army, led Islamic State from the shadows for a little over two years before he blew himself up during a raid by U.S. forces on a house in northern Syria.
The 45-year-old Iraqi had been an important leader in Islamic State's precursor, the Islamic State of Iraq - an offshoot of al Qaeda - since soon after the U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam in 2003.
