DUSHANBE, April 4, 2016, Asia-Plus – International media outlets report the spokesman for the al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra Front in northern Syria is among 20 or so jihadists killed in air strikes.
Abu Firas al-Suri died, along with his son, in the raids in Idlib province on Sunday, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.
The dead militants were also said to include foreign fighters, according to
BBC
.
The reports said it was not clear whether the air strikes were carried out by Syrian or Russian forces.
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights chief Rami Abdel Rahman told
AFP
news agency that Abu Firas was meeting other leading jihadists in the village of Kafar Jales at the time. Another Nusra Front target and one from allied Islamist group Jund al-Aqsa had also been also attacked.
A temporary ceasefire between government forces and rebels has largely held for more than a month but it does not cover the Nusra Front or so-called Islamic State.
According to
Reuters
, Islamist rebel sources said Abu Firas was a founding member of the militant group which fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s and was a senior member of its policy-making Shura Council.
He reportedly worked with former Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in galvanizing support among Pakistani backers of the fundamentalist Taliban movement in Afghanistan several decades ago.
Abu Firas had many followers within the hardline group and reportedly gave commentaries released by Al Nusra Front on issues ranging from governance to religious jurisprudence.
Al-Nusra Front, or Jabhat al-Nusra is a Sunni Islamist militia fighting against Syrian Government forces in the Syrian Civil War, with the aim of establishing an Islamist state in the country. It is the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, and also operates in neighboring Lebanon. In early 2015, the group became one of the major components of the powerful jihadist joint operations room named the Army of Conquest, which took over large territories in Northwestern Syria, although by late 2015, al-Nusra”s role in the alliance became unclear.
The group announced its formation on January 23, 2012. In November 2012, The Washington Post described al-Nusra as the most successful arm of the rebel forces. Ten days later, the United States designated Jabhat al-Nusra as a foreign terrorist organization, followed by the United Nations Security Council and many other countries.
