Opposition Admits Liwa al-Tawhid Head Died in Syrian Army Operation

The head of the Syrian militant group Liwa al-Tawhid Brigade has died of wounds he suffered in a Syrian army air strike last week, the militants and a monitor confirmed on Monday.Liwa Tawhid

“Abdel Qader Saleh has been martyred,” said a posting on a Facebook page linked to the brigade.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the death. “Abdel Qader Saleh, known as Hajji Marea, died of wounds he sustained last Thursday when war planes targeted the Liwa al-Tawhid leadership,” it said in a statement. “He was taken to Turkey after being wounded, and died in a hospital there before being brought back to Syria for burial,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Thursday’s strike also killed Yussef al-Abbas, known as Abu al-Tayyeb, Liwa al-Tawhid’s intelligence chief. He had been in a car along with Saleh, and another senior figure in the insurgent group, Abdelaziz Salameh, who was also wounded.

Following the attack, Liwa al-Tawhid arrested 30 people suspected of being informers for the Syrian government.

According to AFP, Saleh, the chief of operations for Liwa al-Tawhid, was widely seen as the brigade’s most important figure.