Posted on 10/29/2019 6:39:59 AM PDT by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
The locals knew him as Abu Mohammed Salama, an animal feed wholesaler who lived in a compound on the edge of Syria’s border with Turkey, on the outskirts of a town called Barisha. Salama was friendly enough, residents said Monday, but mostly kept to himself.
So they were surprised to learn about his secret life as the commander of an extremist group affiliated with Al Qaeda — and even more surprised to learn that he had been harboring a rival extremist, Abu Bakr Baghdadi, the founder of Islamic State.
“Who would come here — to a village with nothing?” asked Ayman Abdul Ghani, a 33-year-old medical activist working with Barisha’s local council. “Let’s be logical.”
Baghdadi died last weekend during a raid by U.S. forces on the compound in Barisha, according to President Trump and other U.S. officials. Trapped in a tunnel on the property, Baghdadi blew himself up, killing three children in the process. Salama, which was believed to have been a pseudonym for Abu Mohammed Halabi, the leader of the extremist group Guardians of the Religion, was also cut down in the raid, residents say, and his body was taken away by the special operatives.
In the aftermath of the raid, questions remain about how Baghdadi came to the squat compound, where Salama had lived with his eight children for three years.
Barisha, about 30 miles west of the city of Aleppo and a few miles south of the border with Turkey, had largely escaped the punishing air campaign waged by Syrian and Russian warplanes over northern Syria in recent years, mostly because it was so unimportant.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Abu Mohammed Salama aka Abu Mohammed Halabi, the leader of the extremist group Guardians of the Religion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_of_Religion_Organization
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“Who would come here — to a village with nothing?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Somebody trying to hide out.
Are these people Dom?
Or regular Arabs
“and his body was taken away by the special operatives”
To paraphrase Josie Wales, Pigs gotta eat.
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