 The group was established under the name Muhajireen Battalion in summer 2012, and was led by an ethnic Kist, Abu Omar al-Shishani ("Father of Omar the Chechen), an Islamist fighter from Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge who had fought against Russia in the Second Chechen War and the Russia-Georgia War.While Syrian jihadist groups like Ahrar ash-Sham and al-Nusra Front included foreign jihadists who had traveled to Syria to fight with the rebels, Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar was composed largely of non-Syrian fighters when it was formed.Its membership would come to consist of mostly Arabs from Syria, Saudi Arabia and Libya.