The military chief of the pro-opposition Syrian Islamic Front (SIF), Zahran Alloush, was killed Dec. 25 in an airstrike believed to have come from a Russian warplane in the village of Uthaya to the east of Damascus.
Until 2013, Alloush had been the leader of Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) before it merged with other armed opposition groups within the SIF, which is seen as the most powerful among the opposition groups in Syria.