A Sunni Muslim cleric who in the past has been suspected of recruiting militants to fight in Iraq was shot dead as he left a mosque after Friday prayers in the northern city of Aleppo, an aide said. Mohammed Gul Aghassi, 34, was instantly killed by a gunman who pumped five bullets into his body as he left the Imam Mosque where he regularly preaches after the noon prayers. Additional: The Reputed Mentor of Fatah al-Islam and other notorious Islamist terrorists operating in Lebanon and Iraq was gunned down in Syria Friday. Mahmoud Gul Aghasi, a Kurd who goes by the name of Abu al-Qaaqaa, was killed by a gunman who stepped out of a car and opened fire at him from an automatic weapon as he walked out of a mosque in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo after Friday noon prayers, according to an Agence France Presse report attributed to witnesses and medical sources.
Aghasi was hit in the head and stomach and passed away a few hours later in Aleppo's al Shaaba hospital, according to a medical source at the hospital. Three people with him were wounded in the attack. Witnesses said one of his attackers was detained by Aghasi's followers.
Al-Qaaqaa was known for his anti-American views and recordings calling for holy war against U.S. forces, and had set up a group which recruited young men to fight coalition forces in Iraq. He had recently fallen foul of fellow jihadists, however, for allegedly colluding with the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad, and several extremist websites had called for his assassination.
Al-Qaaqaa, according to reliable sources, was responsible for preaching the radical doctrine to Jihadi recruits at a camp in Syria before dispatching them to fight in Iraq, and most recently in Lebanon. The sources said al-Qaaqaa was the God Father of Fatah al-Islam militants and their terrorist mastermind Shaker Abssi, who remains at large in north Lebanon after the army finished off his group in a 106-day battle in Nahr a-Bared on Set. 2.