Fatah al-Sham Front, formerly al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria Al-Nusra Front (ANF), on Monday (October 3rd) confirmed that an airstrike killed one of its senior leaders after the Pentagon said it had targeted him, AFP reported.
Ahmed Salama Mabrouk, an Egyptian also known by his nom de guerre Abu Faraj, "was martyred after a coalition airstrike in the west of Idlib province", the group said in a statement.
Born in 1956 in the suburbs of Cairo, Mabrouk was known as a veteran al-Qaeda leader and a Fatah al-Sham Front commander.
A US strike near Idlib had targeted Mabrouk, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said, describing him as "one of al-Qaeda in Syria's most senior leaders and a legacy al-Qaeda terrorist who previously had ties to Osama bin Laden".
However, officials are "still assessing the results" to determine whether he had in fact been killed in the air raid, Cook stressed.
"His death, if confirmed, would disrupt and degrade co-ordination among senior AQ leaders and extremists," he said in a statement.
