Syria’s Zahran Alloush: His Ideology And Beliefs – Analysis

[Sally]

I think many of the readers will find this article very interesting. It gives you an insight into the Islamic Front and its leader.

Syria’s Zahran Alloush: His Ideology And Beliefs – Analysis

By Syria Comment - Joshua Landis

December 16, 2013

Zahran Alloush is the military chief of the Islamic Front (‏الجبهة الإسلامية*, al-Jabhat al-Islāmiyyah), the newly founded super militia that reportedly represents 45,000 fighters. As such, he could turn out to be the most powerful man in rebel held Syria.

Hassan Hassan argues in his article, “Why Syria’s Islamic Front is bad news for radical groups,” that the Jihadist and radical Islamist rhetoric of the Front can be discounted as a positioning ploy, but that the new group is really bad news for al-Qaida groups in Syria because it will stem the slide toward radicalism in Syria and be able to face down militias on their right.

It is too early to know if the Islamic Front will take on the formidable al-Qaida groups in Syria. Despite frequent tensions, the main groups that came together to form the Islamic Front have worked hand in glove with al-Qaida linked forces, particularly al-Nusra, on most battle fronts and recent offensives against the regime.



To continue reading, go to:

Syria's Zahran Alloush: His Ideology And Beliefs - Analysis Eurasia Review

 

[Alfalfa]

Which begs the question...why is OZreal helping the rebels?

 

[Sally]

Which begs the question...why is OZreal helping the rebels?

It looks like Alfalfa wants to join Hezbollah, and not the Free Syria Army. Poor kid, I don't think he even read the article which is very enlightening, but as per usual he is looking for a little attention, attention that he doesn't appear to be getting in real life.

 

[waltky]

Christmas in Syria...

Al-Qaida leader targeting UN workers
Dec 25,`13 -- The shadowy leader of a powerful al-Qaida group fighting in Syria sought to kidnap United Nations workers and scrawled out plans for his aides to take over in the event of his death, according to excerpts of letters obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.

Iraqi intelligence officials offered the AP the letters, as well as the first known photograph of the Nusra Front leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the head of one of the most powerful bands of radicals fighting the Syrian government in the country's civil war. The officials said they obtained the information about al-Golani after they captured members of another al-Qaida group in September. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to journalists. "I was told by a soldier that he observed some of the workers of the U.N. and he will kidnap them. I ask God for his success," read an excerpt of a letter given by officials from Iraq's Falcon Intelligence Cell, an anti-terrorism unit that works under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The officials said other letters planned the kidnapping and killing of other foreigners, and Syrian and Iraqi civilians. One U.N. worker was kidnapped for eight months in Syria and was released in October. Another two dozen U.N. peacekeepers were briefly held this year. It's not clear if those abductions had any relation to al-Golani's letters. Syria's uprising began with peaceful protests, but it turned into an armed uprising after Assad's forces cracked down on demonstrators. Since then, hard-line Islamic brigades have emerged as the strongest rebel forces in Syria, chiefly among them the Nusra Front.

Under al-Golani's leadership, it has dominated rebel-held parts of southern Syria, and it is a powerful fighting force in the Damascus countryside and northern Syria, with an estimated force of 6,000 to 7,000 fighters. Al-Maliki's Shiite-majority government is considered a quiet ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The officials may have released the letter excerpts to underscore the dominance of al-Qaida in Syria. The intelligence officials did not where they found the al-Qaida fighters who handed over the documents. They also would not say when the letters were written, though they said it represented a tiny sample of a large cache of documents.

The officials couldn't explain why the letter excerpts were in a sloppily written, grammatically incorrect version of an Arabic dialect used across the Levant. It is believed that al-Golani was an Arabic teacher before he rose through al-Qaida ranks, and typically hard-line Muslims try to write in classical Arabic. It may have been that an aide was writing down al-Golani's speech. Arabs typically speak in dialects that are often quite different from the classical Arabic. "The claim by Iraqi intelligence that Jolani and by extension, Jabhat al-Nusra, have been behind an explicit policy of kidnapping U.N. workers should be treated with some suspicion," said Charles Lister, a prominent analyst of Syria's militant groups. He referred to the Nusra Front by its Arabic name. "While it might well be true, elements within Iraq's security services have a clear interest in portraying jihadists in Syria and Iraq in a highly negative light."

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Activists: Over 400 killed in Aleppo bombings
Dec 25,`13 -- A Syrian human rights group says more than 400 people have been killed during a government bombardment of rebel-held areas of the northern city of Aleppo, and more than one-quarter of the victims are children.

Rami Abdurrahman of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday they counted 401 people killed in 11 continuous days of government bombing of Syria's largest city and its province, including 117 children. Abdurrahman said the toll is one of the highest, and with the most civilian casualties, of any government assault in Syria's three-year conflict. The toll is so high because the government was hurling imprecisely aimed, explosive-laden barrels over residential areas, he said.

The Observatory bases its information on a network of activists on the ground. Other rights groups have given much higher numbers of casualties. The government has not commented on its use of the so-called barrel bombs, nor on why it began intensely targeting Aleppo. The attack comes weeks before an international conference is expected to bring together Syria's government and opposition groups seeking to overturn the rule of President Bashar Assad.

Analysts say the attack may be an attempt to bully civilians to expel rebels from parts of the city they seized last July. Also Wednesday, Syria's state news agency said the oil ministry has signed a deal with Russian oil and gas company Soyuzneftegaz to explore in the Mediterranean Sea, in a boost to the war-ravaged country's economic fortunes. SANA's report did not say where the deal was signed, though it said the exploration will take place off the Syrian coast.

Most of Syria's oil and gas fields in the country's east are under opposition control, and the country's oil exports almost have stopped. Russia is one of Assad's strongest international backers. Israel is already developing recent discoveries of massive offshore deposits in the region, and Lebanon has spoken of trying to develop offshore fields.

News from The Associated Press