By December 2016, Abu Jandal had risen to the second-most important ISIL commander in Syria, and participated in an offensive to retake Palmyra and its surroundings from the Syrian government. After this attack's success on 11 December, he was redeployed to Raqqa and appointed as chief commander for the defenses of the Islamic State's "de facto" capital in face of the SDF-led Raqqa campaign. His most important task was protecting ISIL's supply routes to the northern frontlines and al-Bab in the west. Abu Jandal consequently became crucially involved in the battle for the strategic significant village of Jabar. ISIL troops who were probably under his command achieved a minor success during this battle when they surrounded and destroyed a SDF detachment in the village on 21 December, forcing the international SDF volunteer Ryan Lock to kill himself in order to not be captured. Nevertheless, Jabar finally fell to the SDF on 26 December, whereupon Abu Jandal personally organized and led a large-scale counter-attack. In course of this assault, a US airstrike hit his convoy near the village, killing him and his bodyguards; the counter-attack subsequently failed. Abu Jandal was in his thirties when he died.