Portal:Palestine/Selected biography/7

Walid Ahmad Nimer al-Naser (Arabic: وليد أحمد نمر النصر) (1934 – July 23, 1971) better known by his nom de guerre Abu Ali Iyad (Arabic: أبو علي إياد) was a senior Palestinian field commander based in Syria and Jordan during the 1960s and early 1970s. After a career of teaching in the West Bank, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Algeria, he was recruited into the paramilitary group, Fatah, by Khalil al-Wazir in 1964 after graduating from an Algerian military training course. A year later, he became one of Fatah's first leaders in Syria along with al-Wazir and Yasser Arafat. During his time there, he gained a position on the organization's top political body, supervised a major Fatah guerrilla training camp and set up a military intelligence headquarters. As Fatah field commander, he took part in the Battle of Karameh with Israel, gaining a reputation as an unyielding commander. Abu Ali Iyad was also a leading organizer and participant in guerrilla raids into Israeli localities. He was one of the last remaining Palestinian commanders fighting the Jordanian Army in the follow-up battles after the Black September conflict in Jordan. He was killed in the countryside around Ajlun and Jerash by Jordanian forces in July 1971. His partisans claimed he was executed and as retaliation, they assassinated Jordanian prime minister Wasfi al-Tal four months after Abu Ali Iyad's death.