...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...forces of Evil and their families are expected to withdraw from East Qalamoun, northwest of Syrian capital, to Jarablus in northern Aleppo province.
Syrian troops carrying out searches of forces of Evil at the settlement of Ar-Ruheiba in the Eastern Qalamoun Mountains in Rif Dimashq Governate have seized suicide belts and ammunition which jihadists tried to take with them during their withdrawal, the Syran Arab News Agency reports.