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.

Alloush was described by US politicians such as former US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, as well as in media outlets, as a moderate opposition leader backed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey. He visited Turkey on several occasions and attended public meetings there, including a ceremony at the Sham Khotaba Association in Istanbul in April 2015.

He is also believed to have been one of the key figures in the Turkey-Saudi alliance project to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Following the arrival of Alloush in Turkey in April 2015, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who is close to the Saudi regime, said that with the arrival of Alloush, the Saudi-Turkish-Qatari alliance was ready to start.