Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha (28 October 1991-25 May 2014), also known as Abu Hurayra al-Amriki, was a fighter of the al-Nusra Front who came from the United States. He became a suicide bomber during the Syrian Civil War, and was one of the high-profile Americans fighting for the Islamists in Syria.
Biography[]
Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha was born in West Palm Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida, in the United States to a Palestinian-American father and an Italian-American mother. He lived 90 minutes south of Orlando, and while he was a child, his neighbors believed that he was a very nice kid. He grew up in a well-kept middle-class neighborhood and loved to play basketball, video games, and liked Dunkin' Donuts. As an observant Muslim, he was a regular person, but he eventually became a member of the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front during the Syrian Civil War. Abu-Salha tore up his American passport in a video widely circulated on the internet, and he returned to the United States for months (where he threatened to recruit other terrorists to fight in the Syrian Civil War) before returning to Syria. Abu-Salha drove a truck carrying 16 tons of explosives into the al-Fanar Restaurant in Idlib Governorate, a base of the Syrian Arab Army, in May 2014, causing a huge explosion that killed him and several Syrian troops.