A Senior Al-Qaeda Member Killed in Syria

Sources close to Islamist groups announced on Monday that a senior member of Al-Qaeda who had joined the Al-Nusra Front in Syria was killed in an airstrike. According to Reuters, these sources reported that Sheikh Abu al-Faraj al-Masri, an Egyptian national who had been imprisoned in his country for years after returning from Afghanistan, was killed in a drone strike targeting his vehicle in Idlib province in northeastern Syria. Muhammad al-Shami, one of the jihadist forces, stated: 'He was martyred in an attack by the Crusader forces.' Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Defense, the Pentagon, also stated that al-Faraj al-Masri was targeted near Idlib on Monday. However, the Pentagon clarified: 'We are assessing the outcome of this attack.' Since the beginning of U.S. airstrikes in Syria, senior members and forces affiliated with the Islamic State (ISIS) and Al-Nusra Front have been targeted by the U.S. In the meantime, the Al-Nusra Front, which now calls itself Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, confirmed the death of Abu al-Faraj al-Masri. Reports indicate that the last time Abu al-Faraj al-Masri was seen in public was in July, where he was present at the renaming ceremony of the Al-Nusra Front to Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham alongside Abu Muhammad al-Julani, the leader of the Al-Nusra Front. Last month, Abu Hajar al-Homsi, a senior commander of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, was also killed in an airstrike in the outskirts of Aleppo. According to Reuters, Sheikh Ahmed Salama Mabruk, known as Abu al-Faraj al-Masri, 60, was considered one of Ayman al-Zawahiri's main associates in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The report states that Abu al-Faraj al-Masri was one of the leaders of jihadist groups in Egypt who was imprisoned for seven years following the assassination of Anwar Sadat, the President of Egypt, in 1981. He then went to Afghanistan. It is said that he was previously detained in Azerbaijan in 1998. Sources from Islamist groups say that after his release from Egyptian prison in 2011 during the presidency of Mohamed Morsi, like other radical Islamist forces, he went to Syria to join the Al-Nusra Front. The Egyptian army ousted Mohamed Morsi in a coup in 2013.