Ishmael Ashur

Ashur is the leader of The Pitt, a raider and slaver town. He is said to have found a cure for mutations . He is first formally introduced during the quest Unsafe Working Conditions, right before the PC goes to fight in The Hole. The PC gets to meet Ashur in person after fighting his way through The Hole. The meeting was organized by Werhner and Midea to get the PC closer to the Cure.

After The Scourge
In a series of holotapes found in his personal safe, he talks to his daughter Marie about the history of The Pitt and "the Scourge", Ashur reveals he was a member of the Brotherhood of Steel, and participated in their annihilation of The Pitt. During the fight, Ashur was caught in an explosion, and was presumed dead, so the Brotherhood left him within the mill. After being pulled out of the rubble by scavengers trying to steal his armor, Ashur impresses them, some even considering him a god (you will hear some Pitt raiders call him Lord Ashur.) He then brought together the scavengers in the area, starting the city.

He chose to start the city in The Pitt because he was touched by the tenacious locals, and the fact that it contained the only operational steel mill the Brotherhood had ever run into. So he recruited everyone in the area, killed Raiders leaders and made them follow him. When that wasn't enough he fell back to slaves, which he admits he hates to do, but claims "It has to be done", since citizens of The Pitt are unable to have children due to mutation. His ultimate goal is to create the first city that is "producing" once again, since every city that was created after the bombs fell so far has lived off leftovers and was unable to create things anew.

Good or Evil?
It is very difficult to tell weather Ashur is good or evil, and seems like more of a grey character, much like his nemesis Werhner however, you lose Karma when stealing from him, which suggests the game thinks of him as good. He often makes evil-like sacrifices that he claims "have to be done" like buying slaves to work in the steel mill or experiment on his daughter Marie.

Although he uses slave labor, he intends to free the slaves once his city's population is able to reproduce again. This implies that once a cure is found, he will administer it to the slaves as well.

His Daughter
The citizens in The Pitt are not sterile but because Citizens in this area are so heavily irradiated, that children are born horribly mutated and change into Trogs weeks after birth. this of course makes Ashur's daughter Marie an interesting case since she was apparently borne from his Wife Sandra, and has no mutations at all... not even a sixth toe! Marie can't be more than a few months old, since she's still very small and unable to talk, walk, or crawl. It's possible that Sandra and Ashur have not been exposed to The Pitt's radiation long enough to become irradiated by The Pitt's unique radiation, and their quest for a cure is pointless.

Appearances
Ashur appears in The Pitt DLC pack for Fallout 3.