Rabat - During days of fighting in the Syrian countryside near Aleppo last week, a Moroccan national heading an Islamic State battalion was killed by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Rabat – During days of fighting in the Syrian countryside near Aleppo last week, a Moroccan national heading an Islamic State battalion was killed by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The SDF, an alliance of Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, and other groups, recently gained control of two villages in the region. Yesterday, the Syrian Organization for Human Rights reported that one of al-Baghdadi’s field commanders, a Moroccan national, was killed in the fighting last week.
The Organization did not provide information about the commander’s identity, but noted that 30 other Islamic State fighters were killed in the battle.
The exact number of Moroccans that have died in the fighting in Iraq and Syria is unclear.
The Arabic speaking news website Al-Yaoum24 reports that 1,579 Moroccans have traveled from the kingdom to fight for a range of organizations in Syria. 758 of these citizens have joined the ranks of ISIS, while 52 are fighting for Jabbat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. Of these fighters, 499 have died.
The newspaper Aabbir reports that there has been an increase in recent days in the death toll of Moroccan combatants as the fight against the Islamic State intensifies.