Ahmad al-Sharabati

His father, Uthman al-Sharabati, was a well-established merchant and a financier of the nationalist resistance movement against French Mandatory rule, which began in 1920.

Ahmad was an engineer by trade, obtaining his graduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, after being a student at the American University of Beirut.

He left the LNA in 1936 to join the most prominent independence movement in Mandatory Syria, the National Bloc.

[1] Sharabati struck a particular alliance with the National Bloc's Damascus-based leaders, such as Shukri al-Quwatli and Jamil Mardam Bey.

Sharabati's ally, President Quwatli tasked him to establish the post-independent Syrian Army and was entrusted to win the favor of officers, which he was not able to do successfully.