Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi took over as leader of Islamic State in 2019 following the deaths in quick succession of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Baghdadi’s nominated successor Abu Hassan al-Muhajjir.
The US operation to try to kill him had been in the planning stages since early December, when officials became convinced that he was living in a nondescript three-storey building on the outskirts of Atme in Syria’s Idlib province, close to the Turkish border.
Photograph: US state department/EPA
