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String of Attacks Kill 20 Syria Rebel Commanders
[AnNahar] At least 20 rebel commanders, most of them hardline Islamists, have died in Syria since early December in a string of mysterious assassination'>assassinations, a monitor said on Wednesday.The commanders have been killed in roadside kabooms or shootouts, but no faction has grabbed credit for their deaths. Analysts say they could be part of an liquidation campaign carried out by either the regime of  Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad Lord of the Baath... or the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... group. On Tuesday, Abu Rateb al-Homsi, a provincial "emir" in the Ahrar al-Sham ...a Syria jihadi group made up of Islamists and salafists, not that there's that much difference, formed into a brigade. They make up the main element of the Islamic Front but they don't profess adoration of al-Qaeda and they've been fighting (mainly for survival) against the Islamic State. Their leadership was wiped out at a single blow by a suicide kaboom at a crowded basement meeting in September, 2014... hardline opposition group, was killed when unknown attackers fired on his car in the central province of Homs, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Homsi is the most high-profile of those killed, most of whom come from the ranks of al-Qaeda's Syria affiliate al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli sh-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... Front and hardline groups like Ahrar al-Sham. "The liquidations have intensified since the beginning of December, but it's unknown who carried them out," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman. Among the dead, seven were leading officers in al-Nusra, which has a strong presence in northern and southern Syria, as well as outside the capital, Abdel Rahman told AFP. Hussam Ammura, al-Nusra's emir in the besieged Paleostinian camp of Yarmuk in southern Damascus, was killed on December 22. Abu Julaybib, a Jordanian national and al-Nusra's emir in the southern Daraa province was killed on December 4. Ahrar al-Sham has had two senior members killed this month: Homsi, and Abdel Qader Dabaan, a commander in the northwest province of Idlib. Another six leading hardline figures with close ties to Ahrar al-Sham and five non-Islamist commanders have also been assassinated since early December, Abdel Rahman said. Ahrar al-Sham and al-Nusra have formed a strong alliance in northwest Syria, where they have fought both regime forces and IS. According to Thomas Pierret, a Syria specialist at the University of Edinburgh, "the regime and its allies are by far the main suspects" in the killings. "One of the components of the counter-insurgency strategy implemented by Russia since September is the decapitation of the bad boy leadership," he added. With help from their Russian ally, intelligence services in Damascus have been able to gather better information on senior rebel figures, Pierret said. But another possibility, he said, is that IS "sleeper cells" carried out the killings. "Real or suspected supporters of IS are regularly targeted by rebels in the northernmost parts of Homs province, where Abu Rateb (al-Homsi) was assassinated," according to Pierret. Posted by: trailing wife 2016-01-08 |
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