Iraq News

Goalkeeper turned opposition fighter buried in Syria

Hundreds of mourners attended the burial of a Syrian goalkeeper turned opposition fighter Sunday (June 9th) after he died of wounds sustained in battle against regime forces, AFP reported.

Abdel-Basset al-Sarout, 27, died Saturday after he was wounded on Thursday night in clashes on the edge of the embattled Idlib region in north-west Syria.

Before the war, Sarout was a goalkeeper for the country's youth football team.

When peaceful demonstrations broke out against the regime in 2011, he became a popular singer of protest songs in his hometown of Homs.

But after a brutal government crackdown on the protests, he took up arms, eventually joining the Jaish al-Izza opposition group, with whom he was fighting when he was wounded.

On Sunday, hundreds of supporters joined a procession of vehicles driving Sarout's body to the mosque in the north-western village of Dana.

Syrian activists and opposition supporters have flooded social media with eulogies for a man they describe as the "goalkeeper of the revolution" or "songbird of the revolution".

Sarout starred in the documentary "Return to Homs", for which Syrian director Talal Derki was awarded at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014.

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