...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..., a Salafist bad boy group supported by Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
, in control of the town of Tall Firzat in East Ghouta.
A few days ago, sources in the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) reported that Tall Firzat had been liberated from rebel control in an army offensive east of Damascus. However,
man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them...
Jaish al-Islam forces have meanwhile succeeded in retaking the town, driving the Syrian troops back to the Marj Sultan area.
The Syrian Arab Army has launched two counterattacks against Tall Firzat in order to liberate it once more, but so far these attacks have been unsuccessful.