Ahmad Abousamra

=== Ahmad Abousamra, known also as Abu Sulayman ash-Shami and Abu Maysarah ash-Shami, was a Syrian-American Islamic militant and ideologue who served as the chief editor of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's Dabiq magazine. === Ahmad Abousamra was Syrian-American dual citizen who was born in Paris, France on 19 September 1981. He grew up in the Boston suburb of Stoughton. He attended Xaverian Brothers Catholic High School in Westwood up until his senior year when he transferred to Stoughton High and graduated in 1999. In 2006, he graduated from the University of Massachusetts Boston with a Degree in Computer Science.

2002-2003
In 2002 he traveled to Pakistan in an attempt to receive terrorist training and enter Afghanistan to fight American forces alongside the Taliban. His plan failed and he returned to the United States.

According to US officials, in 2003 Abousamra and Mehanna discussed the feasibility of killing a US executive branch official. Later in the year the trio discussed launching an attack on a US mall, inspired by the Washington sniper shootings. They backed out of the plan after failing to get hold of automatic weapons.

According to US court documents, in 2004 Abousamra and Mehanna went to Yemen to attend a terrorist training camp there. Abousamra then went to Fallujah in Iraq with the intention of fighting US troops there. After about two weeks in Iraq, Abousamra traveled to Jordan and Syria, returning to Boston in August 2004.

In 2006 he and Mehanna were questioned by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, but they provided false information. Shortly afterward he left the country to Syria, never to return.

In the Islamic State
In 2013, Abousamra joined Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria, which was at the time a front group for the Islamic State of Iraq. When the leadership within Jabhat al-Nusra attempted to break away from IS, after Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi created the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, he remained loyal to the Islamic State. According to an eulogy by IS, shortly after the split he requested to carry out a suicide attack but was spotted by Abu Muhammad al-Furqan, who brought him into the groups media department. He was appointed as chief editor of Dabiq magazine which was created as part of a collaboration between him and Abu Muhammad al-Furqan.