A senior commander and founding member of Fateh al-Sham Front, the former al-Qaeda affiliate previously known as al-Nusra Front (ANF), has been killed in an airstrike near the Syrian city of Aleppo, AFP reported Friday (September 9th).

The strike hit a Thursday night meeting of leaders of the Army of Conquest, an Islamist opposition alliance of which Fateh al-Sham Front is a leading member, killing Abu Omar Saraqeb, who operates under different noms de guerre, including Abu Hajer al-Homsi.

Fateh al-Sham Front announced Saraqeb's "martyrdom" on social media.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said unidentified aircraft hit the meeting on Thursday night, killing Saraqeb and another opposition commander named as Abu Muslim al-Shami.

"This is undoubtedly the biggest blow ever inflicted on Fateh al-Sham and the Army of Conquest in Syria," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

According to the Observatory, Saraqeb had been a leading member of al-Qaeda in Iraq – a precursor to the "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL) – before going on to become a key commander of ANF in Syria.

Saraqeb reportedly also founded ANF's Lebanon branch, which has claimed responsibility for several bombings in that country, and led a major offensive by the Army of Conquest in Syria in 2015 which saw it seize control of nearly all of the north-western province of Idlib.

In early August, Saraqeb led an offensive against pro-regime fighters encircling the opposition-held east of the divided city and opened up a new supply route from the south that broke the siege. But this week pro-regime fighters recaptured nearly all of the territory taken last month.