Amman // On the evening of April 27, a four-wheel drive jeep was speeding along the Zarib road in Western Deraa when an explosion tore it apart, killing its three occupants. One of them was Tayser Al Sharif, a man known to his family and friends as Abu Malik, but renowned throughout southern Syria by the nickname Cheg Cheg.

A major weapons trader, he was a wealthy, mafia-like figure at the heart of a complex, shadowy and contradictory network that linked rebels, spies, smugglers, western governments, ISIL and forces fighting for president Bashar Al Assad.

It was through Cheg Cheg and other gunrunners that weapons supplied by the West and Arab intelligence services inadvertently made their way into the hands of ISIL fighters.