...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful...(Army of Islam) launched a counter-offensive inside the East Ghouta region of rural Damascus on Monday, targeting the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) held farms outside the key town of al-Reyhan.
The Salafist tough guys began the counter-offensive by attacking the Syrian Arab Army's defenses at the al-Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates...
i Farm and nearby Municipal Stadium; this resulted in a short two-hour battle on Monday afternoon.
According to an al-Masdar field correspondent in Damascus City, the Syrian Armed Forces foiled the Jaish al-Islam assault after the latter failed to reclaim the Qatari Farm located between al-Reyhan and the 'Adra Central Prison.
Following Jaish al-Islam's failed counter-offensive, the Syrian Armed Forces advanced to the outskirts of Al_Reyhan, leaving them within 200 meters of the town's entrance.