Hassan Aboud

Journeys

Biography

Hassan Aboud, known by his nom de guerre Abu Abdullah al-Hamawi, was the founder and leader of Ahrar al-Sham (The Free Men of Syria), one of the most powerful Islamist rebel factions in the Syrian civil war. Unlike the more internationally notorious Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS, Ahrar al-Sham positioned itself as a Syrian nationalist Islamist movement and cooperated closely with other opposition factions — including in the joint operations that liberated Idlib province in 2015. Aboud was killed on September 9, 2014 in a bomb attack at a meeting of Ahrar al-Sham's leadership in Idlib province that killed most of the organization's top commanders in a single strike.