Lebanese Khaled Mahmoud al-Dandashi, also known as Abu Suleiman, had been in prison in Lebanon from 2000 to 2005 for being part of "Abou Aisha" forces fighting the Lebanese Army in Jroud el Dennieh in North Lebanon. After his release, he became part of Fatah al-Islam and was arrested and imprisoned for involvement bombing against a Lebanese Army convoy and spent 6 more years in prison from 2006 to 2012. In early 2012, Dandashi was either released from prison after serving his sentence, or escaped prison. Al-Dandashi traveled to Qalaat al-Hosn, a village in Syria near Homs, at the foot of Crusader castle Krak des Chevaliers, where he announced early 2012 in a video his launching of a Syria branch of Jund al-Sham, declaring himself the group's emir, and saying his mission was "jihad to enable God's rule on earth". This Jund branch was composed of Lebanese Sunni fighters from Tripoli and north Lebanon and some Libyans, and it fought alongside the al-Nusra Front. Following the June 2013 clashes in Sidon between followers of militant cleric Ahmed al-Assir and the Lebanese Army, Jund al-Sham allegedly provided protection and refuge to the Lebanese former artist Fadl Shaker in "Tawaare' Taameer Ail el Helweh" region. In August 2013, two members of Jund al-Sham from Lebanese Tripoli were killed in a suicide bombing near a Syrian Army checkpoint in Homs District. Seventeen Lebanese fighters from Tripoli were killed in a Syrian Army ambush in Syria on their way to join Al-Mahmoud's forces. Jund al-Sham has been accused of organizing massacres of tens of Syrian Christians in the predominantly Christian Wadi al-Nasara in Homs district in August 2013. In March 2014, over 300 Jund fighters, probably with their families together numbering 1,000 people, were holed up in Crusader castle Krak des Chevaliers, near Homs. Syrian government troops seized the castle, killing at least ten of the Jund al-Sham, including their leader Khaled Mahmoud al-Dandashi. 300 surviving Jund al-Sham fighters, with their families together numbering 1,000 people, then retreated to Lebanon.