[1] The formation of the Northern Sun Battalion was announced by Mohammed Hammou, a brigadier general who defected from the Syrian Armed Forces, in the Manbij countryside on 16 April 2014.

Less than a week later, several other small groups and individuals joined the battalion, including Abu Layla and several other commanders from the Kurdish Front[8] and the Free Syria Brigade's eastern branch.

[22] In November, the battalion participated in the Syrian Democratic Force's al-Hawl offensive, and according to commander-in-chief Adnan al-Ahmad was committed to pushing ISIL out of al-Shaddadah and Raqqa, as well as from Jarablus, the Tishrin Dam and Manbij.

He had previously been evacuated by a US military helicopter to a hospital in Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan, but doctors were unable to remove a bullet to the head and prevent internal bleeding to the brain.

The Manbij Military Council condemned the act, and announced that the involved Northern Sun Battalion fighters would be held for trial for violating the Geneva Conventions.