Zahran Alloush Likely Injured in ISIL Attack, Militants Cry for Help in Ghouta

Thursday, 3 July 2014

Zahran Alloush Likely Injured in ISIL Attack, Militants Cry for Help in Ghouta

Local Editor

A gathering of leaders of the so-called Jaish Al-Islam (Army of Islam) in East Gouta was targeted with several shells with the commander Zahran Alloush severely injured, sources told Al-Akhbar newspaper.

The sources pointed out that dozens were killed and several others were injured after the town of Midaa, in Eastern Gouta, was targeted with shells. Prospects that Alloush would survive are low amid a media blackout among militants in the East Gouta, they said.

This comes several days after sources told Al-Manar TV that a suicide bomber targeted a gathering for Alloush supporters in the town of Midaa in Eastern Gouta, Killing and injuring dozens.

The militants of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) then clashed with those of the so-called Jaish Al-Islam and kidnapped dozens of them, Al-Manar reported. Reports asserted that the suicide bomber is Abu Mohammad al-Ansari, an ISIL fighter.

In the meantime, Alloush appeared in a 15-minute video on YouTube Wednesday, exhorting his men against ISIL, which this week declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Alloush called the group “khawarij.” “This group of khawarij, the gang of [Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi ... tried to destroy jihad in Afghanistan, in Chechnya, in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Iraq. They have now come to try and destroy jihad in Syria,” he tells dozens of assembled fighters in the video.

In the, Alloush relates several instances of atrocities committed by ISIL militants in recent months, including the murder of a leading rebel commander, known as Abul-Miqdam. “They forced him to the ground and slit his throat,” Alloush said, referring to the widely reported incident from last month.

Alloush said he and his comrades in the north had intercepted walkie-talkie conversations between ISIL militants, many of them non-Syrians, which demonstrated their ruthlessness and often utter disregard for civilians they encountered. “They are dirty bastards, with an evil ideology,” Alloush said.

On Tuesday, fighters from Jaish Al-Islam ejected ISIL from the Ghouta town of Midaa after three days of heavy clashes, according to pro-opposition media reports.

Militants Threaten to End Syria Fight

ISIL terrorism

In a similar development, eleven militant groups in the north and east of Syria were crying for help threatening to lay down their arms if they don’t receive help to fight ISIL and issuing a one-week deadline for the help to arrive. They demanded the help from the opposition-in-exile National Coalition and the rebel Free Syrian Army, among other groups.

“Our popular revolution [against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad]...is today under threat because of the [Islamic State], especially after it announced a caliphate,” said the statement.

In a new development that shows the suffering of Al-Nusra front and the rest of the militant groups in front of the ISIL (now renamed as IS) especially in Deir ez-Zor, factions and the people of the city of Shheil, Namlieh and Harbjee announced end of fighting against ISIL and pledged allegiance for “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi”.

Al-Shheil, which is located in the eastern countryside of Deir ez-Zor, is the stronghold for Al-Nusra front and the place where it was said that its Emir Abu Mohammad Al-Goulani was found.

Some Syrian militants seeking Assad’s ouster initially welcomed the ISIL terrorists among their ranks. But their systematic abuses and quest for hegemony in opposition-held areas eventually turned the militants against them and their project.

ISIL has kidnapped thousands of Syrians, many of them political activists and rebels, and carried out summary executions in areas under its control.

The group has been bolstered in recent weeks by an offensive it spearheaded in neighboring Iraq, capturing large swathes of territory as well as heavy weapons seized from fleeing Iraqi troops.