Abu Firas al-Suri, Syrian al-Nusra Front senior official, Dead

  Military

Radwan Nammous, also known by his nom de guerre, Abu Firas al-Suri, was born in 1950, in Madaya, Syria and died on April 3, 2016.

He was a senior official in the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front, serving as the group’s spokesman.

Abu Firas al-Suri joined the Syrian military and attained the rank of lieutenant but was discharged due to his Islamist leanings in 1979.

al-Suri then joined the Muslim Brotherhood of Syria and was reportedly a military trainer in the Muslim Brotherhood’s Fighting Vanguard group between 1979 and 1980.

At that time, al-Suri fought against the regime of Hafez al-Assad during the Islamist uprising in Syria.

He later traveled to Afghanistan, where he met Abdullah Azzam, a founding father of modern jihadism who was killed in the late 1980s, and Osama bin Laden.

Abu Firas al-Suri reportedly helped bin Laden and Pakistani jihadists establish Lashkar-e-Taiba, some type of terrorist organization that remains closely linked to al Qaeda to this day.

Then after the 9/11 attacks, al Suri helped al Qaeda families escape Afghanistan.

And he was stationed in Yemen, from 2003 to 2013 where he stayed until the dispute between the al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant erupted.

It was reported that Abu Firas al-Suri on the 3rd of April, 2016 his son and 20 other al-Nusra Front fighters were killed in air strikes targeting an al-Nusra stronghold in the northeast of Syria, Idlib province.

Abu Firas al-Suri passed away in 2016.