During Mu'awiya's caliphate (661–680), Abd Allah served as a commander in the wars against the Byzantine Empire. According to the historian Khalifa ibn Khayyat, Abd Allah led the annual winter raid against Anatolia in 669/70. The historians al-Waqidi and al-Ya'qubi hold that Abd Allah succeeded Sufyan ibn Awf as the Arabs' commander following his death in the raid of 672. According to the modern historian Marek Jankowiak, the traditional Muslim accounts of this episode indicate that the raid failed to achieve its objective and that Abd Allah "failed to extricate it [the Arab army] and bring it safely back home".