Tony Cartalucci
The Long War Journal reported in its post, “Former Guantanamo detainee killed while leading jihadist group in Syria,” that:
Ibrahim
Bin Shakaran, a Moroccan who spent more than three years at the
Guantanamo Bay detention facility before being released to Moroccan
custody, has been killed while leading a jihadist group that fights
Syrian government forces.
Bin
Shakaran, who is also known as Abu Ahmad al Maghribi, Abu Ahmad al
Muhajir, and Brahim Benchekroune, was “martyred, Insha’Allah, in battles
for Hilltop # 45 in Latakia,” according to Kavkaz Center, a propaganda arm of the Islamic Caucasus Emirate.
Bin
Shakaran led a jihadist group known as Sham al Islam, which is based in
Latakia and is comprised primarily of fighters from Morocco, according to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Bin Shakaran created the group “not only to recruit fighters for the
Syria war, but also to establish a jihadist organization within Morocco
itself.”
Sham
al Islam has been fighting alongside the al Qaeda’s Syrian branch, the
Al Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant, as well as Ahrar al Sham
and the Army of the Emigrants and Supporters in an ongoing offensive in
the coastal province of Latakia.
Curiously
absent from The Long War Journal’s report is any mention of how Bin
Shakaran made it into northern Syria in the first place. Clearly this is
because it would involve mentioning Turkey, a long-standing NATO
member, with NATO being the organization that invaded and occupied
Afghanistan, and whom Bin Shakaran had been fighting and ultimately fled
from before being captured.
