Career
He was a former Colonel in the Syrian Air Force who defected in July 2011. Al-Asaad had announced his defection on 4 July 2011, while he established the Free Syrian Army on 29 July 2011. He went to the Turkish Hatay Province, where he was under patronage of the Turkish Armed Forces.
After UN military observers entered Syria, al-Asaad announced a ceasefire for all forces, committed to the Kofi Annan peace plan for Syria. However, after a few days he has reannounced continuation of attacks led by rebels because the government of Bashar al-Assad, according to him, did not make peace as promised. On 31 May 2012, al-Asaad urged Kofi Annan to scrap his peace plan which he claims failed.
Moreover, al-Asaad opposes any exile solution for Assad, and seeks for fighting until al-Assad's government is overthrown. In an interview with the Voice of Russia made in early August 2012, al-Asaad claimed that the Syrian government attempted to assassinate him several times and for that reason he is being guarded by the Turkish intelligence. On 22 September 2012, the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) announced that it had moved its command centre from Turkey to "liberated areas" inside Syria.
In November 2012, in order to get more support from Saudi Arabia, the FSA leadership was still planning to move into Syria, a FSA general al-Sheikh said. The same general falsely claimed that the FSA moved its centre in Syria in September 2012. On 8 December 2012, in Antalya, Turkey, Asaad was replaced by Brigadier General Salim Idris as effective military commander of the Free Syrian Army.
His family members were victims of execution by Bashar al-Assad's forces. Riad al-Assad has made controversial statements such as suggesting that ethnic cleansing and suicide bombing are "an integral part of revolutionary action, of Free Syrian Army action."
On 25 March 2013, he was the victim of a car bomb explosion near Mayadin, in eastern Syria. He was taken to Turkey for treatment, where his right leg was amputated.
In his 2015 book, The Syrian Jihad, analyst Charles Lister cites a "senior Ahrar al-Sham leader" as telling him the rebel group had "secretly traced back to Jabhat al-Nusra.".
