Nusra Leader in Syria Killed in Drone Strike
Local Editor
The Pentagon confirmed on Tuesday that the US army had carried out strikes in Syria against the Jabhat Fatah Al-Sham [formerly known as al-Nusra Front] leader Abu Faraj al-Masri and that the military was assessing results of the operation.
On Monday, US War Department spokesman Matthew Allen told Sputnik that the US Army was targeting a "prominent al-Qaeda member".
Earlier reports emerged that a senior leader of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, formerly the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front, Abu Faraj Masri, died in a strike in Syria's Idlib province.
Jabhat Fateh al Sham confirmed the death of the Egyptian cleric in an air strike.
In one of al-Masri's last public appearances, he was alongside former al-Nusra leader Abu Mohamad al-Jolani when the group announced in July it was renaming itself Jabhat Fateh al Sham as it split from al-Qaida.
Al-Masri spent years in prison in his native Egypt on charges of plotting with fundamentalist extremist groups and later left for Afghanistan, where he joined al-Qaida.
The 60-year-old, whose real name was Ahmad Salamah Mabrouk, had been one of the leading companions of al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, according to a militant source.
The source said that like some other Takfiri militants, he came to Syria to join the al-Nusra Front after being freed from an Egyptian prison during the rule of President Mohamed Mursi, who was toppled by the military in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.
On September 9, Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry announced a new peace plan to address the conflict.
The ceasefire deal was later shattered by numerous violations, which resulted in intensified fighting between the Syrian Army and militants in Aleppo.
The Syrian government later announced an end to the ceasefire regime, while Russia said that the United States failed to fulfil its obligation to separate terrorist groups from the so-called "moderate" opposition.
Syria has been mired in war since 2011, with the Syrian Army repelling numerous Takfiri extremist groups such as Daesh [Arabic acronym for "ISIS" / "ISIL"] and al-Nusra Front.
Source: Sputnik, Edited by website team
