Leader of Saudi-financed rebel group killed by ISIL assassins in Aleppo

Special to WorldTribune.com

NICOSIA — A leading Islamist rebel linked to Saudi Arabia has been assassinated in Syria.

Abu Omar Al Shami, commander of the Saudi-financed Ahrar Al Sham, was killed in a suicide bombing on Feb. 23 in Aleppo.

Abu Khaled Al Suri.  /AFP/Getty Images
Abu Khaled Al Suri. /AFP/Getty Images

Al Shami, also known as Abu Khaled Al Suri, was attacked by five fighters from Al Qaida’s Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, who infiltrated Ahrar headquarters.

“He was killed with six of his colleagues by ISIL,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Syrian Observatory said Al Suri was regarded as a leading Islamic rebel commander. Al Suri was described as a personal representative of Al Qaida
commander Ayman Zawahiri who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Rebel sources did not say how ISIL fighters entered Ahrar headquarters. They said one of the ISIL attackers detonated his explosive belt once they reached Al Suri.

Al Suri, 50, was regarded as a leading member of the Saudi-sponsored
Islamic Front, which confronted ISIL in northern Syria and sought to expand operations in the south. The assassination was believed to have been ordered by ISIL commander Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, deemed a rival of Zawahiri.

In late 2013, Zawahiri appointed Al Suri to mediate the war between ISIL
and other Islamist militias in northern Syria. Al Suri was one of the few
Saudi-supported militia chiefs to oppose the Islamic Front offensive against
ISIL in January.

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