Syrian Army Kills US Backed Al-Nusra Commander in Syria’s Aleppo

Egypt-born Abu Sulaiman Masri, has been fatally shot in the head during a clash with the Syrian government forces in the Tal-al-Karsani village in the outskirt of the northern city of Aleppo, Russia’s Sputnik news agency reported Saturday, citing unnamed sources.

The al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front is considered the second largest terror group operating in the war-torn Syria after Daesh thus Masri’s death could be considered as a hard blow to its operations in the Middle Eastern country.

Al-Nusra Front has reportedly confirmed its leader’s death and posted photos of his lifeless body online.

Aleppo is Syria’s second largest city and used to serve as the country’s major trade hub before the crisis started in March 2011. Control over the major city has been divided between militants and government forces although fresh gains by the Syrian armed forces are reportedly changing the situation in favor of the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The foreign-sponsored conflict in Syria, which was ignited in March 2011, has killed more than 250,000 people and left over one million injured, according to the United Nations.

Some 1,000 fighters from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) have recently arrived in the town, located in Nineveh Province, Iraq’s al-Sumaria satellite TV network cited Khidir Saleh, the head of Sinjar’s Izadi council, as saying on Sunday.

[ Editor’s Note: Sorry folks, for the “few hundred morphing into “some thousands” in the next sentence. We always take their numbers reporting with a grain of salt… Jim W. Dean ]

This comes as the Iraqi army and the country’s Kurdish Peshmerga forces are reportedly preparing to launch a massive attack on ISIS positions in Sinjar.

ISIS terrorists overran Sinjar, mainly inhabited by Izadis, last summer. According to estimates by Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), some 1,280 Izadis were killed during the raid.

Tens of thousands of Izadis, fearing for their lives, scrambled up the mountain surrounding Sinjar, and remained stranded there for days without any basic commodities and in sizzling temperatures.

The KRG says there are nearly 550,000 members of the Izadi community in Iraq. Izadis reportedly account for 400,000 of the more than three million people who have been displaced in Iraq ever since ISIS terrorists began their march through the Iraqi territory in June 2014.

Gruesome violence has plagued the northern and western parts of Iraq ever since ISIS Takfiris launched their offensive in Iraq, and took control of portions of the country. The militants have been committing vicious crimes against all ethnic and religious communities in Iraq, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, and Christians; Press TV reported.