With the last rebel forces leaving the eastern slopes of the Qalamoun Mountains, the Syrian military was able to secure the this entire rugged region near the Syrian capital.
The eastern Qalamoun region had long been under the control of the Free Syrian Army
... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund...
(FSA) and Jaish al-Islam
...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...before they finally agreed to concede it to the Syrian military earlier this month.
Since clearing the Qalamoun Mountains, the Syrian military has shifted their attention to the last krazed killer bastion in southern Damascus.
| An Nahar adds: |
The buses carrying hundreds of fighters and civilians made it to the northeast of the province, which is controlled by pro-
...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire....
rebels, the Britannia-based monitor said.