While quoting a security source, AFP stated that the evacuation was put on hold due to the death of Zahran Allouch: the chief of Jaish al Islam, an important rebel faction in Syria, was killed yesterday in an air raid claimed by the Syrian regime.
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Mazen al-Shami, an opposition activist based near Damascus, said warplanes believed to be Russian fired 10 missiles at the site where Allouch and top commanders in his group were meeting in Otaya.
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Anwar Abdulhadi, a Palestinian official in Damascus, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the withdrawal of the mainly Islamic State militants from Yarmouk is being delayed for “logistical reasons”.
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Though it is not part of the Free Syrian Army, a big umbrella group of forces fighting against troops loyal to President Bashar Assad, the coalition still took part in the conference held by Saudi Arabia in early December, aimed at trying to agree a common position from which to negotiate with the current Syrian government. Jaysh Al-Islam is considered the most powerful organisation in the vicinity of the Syrian capital. That process aims to set into motion talks between Assad’s government and the Syrian opposition in Geneva that would create a timeline for drafting a new constitution and holding elections. The Russian minister said the two countries still disagree on Assad’s future, but added that he and Attiyah had agreed to encourage the Syrian opposition to launch talks with the Syrian government. The delay deals a blow to United Nations efforts to end a years-long government siege of parts of the city controlled by a patchwork of rebel groups that has impeded the flow of food and humanitarian aid, starving many people to death.
Aron Lund, editor of the Carnegie Endowment’s Syria in Crisis website, said: “Those negotiations needed hardliners like Zahran Alloush to be involved for their credibility”.
The Army of Islam group swiftly appointed Essam al-Buwaydhani, a field commander known as Abu Hammam, as the new leader of the group, replacing Allouch. At the time of his death, he reportedly commanded as many as 20,000 “mainstream” Syrian fighters.
It said that the strike was carried out after a series of aerial reconnaissance operations against groupings of “terrorist” organizations and their headquarters in the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta.
He reflected the difficulties in identifying moderate rebels from extremists and other militants in Syria. In addition to fighting government forces, the Army of Islam faction fought pitched battles against its rival, the ISIL group near Damascus.
They are expected to include members of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group and al-Qaeda affiliate the Al-Nusra Front.
In a recent interview with the Daily Beast, Alloush was asked if his group applied Sharia law in the areas it controls.”Jaysh al Islam does not intervene in the judiciary body in our areas”, he replied.
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“Russian military action seems to have significantly weakened the Islamic State (Daesh) and al-Nusra terrorist groups: around 4,000 people, including many Islamic State (Daesh) fighters, on Saturday have to leave several besieged neighborhoods of the Syrian capital Damascus”, wrote DWN. Alawites are a Shia offshoot to which Assad’s family also belongs.
