(Zaman Al Wasl)- Al Qaeda's Syria branch, the Nusra Front, said Sunday it has killed the commander of Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade, an ISIS loyal group operating in southern province of Daraa.
The dominant jihadi group said on Twitter that ISIS man in Daraa Abu Ali al Braidi, (Dubbed: Al Khal), or The Uncle, has been killed with number of his comrades in 'a "heroic" suicide bombing.
Footage posted online by Nusra showed three fighters from Yarmouk Martyrs admitting that their group had pledged allegiance to ISIS in mid January 2014.
Nusra Front and Islamic State are the two most powerful rebel groups fighting government forces in Syria and have been fighting each other since 2013 largely because of a power struggle between their leaders.
Last June fierce fighting erupted between Yarmouk Martyrs and Nusra backed by Ahrar al-Sham movement that ended by a fragile truce.
Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade gained attention when they abducted 21 U.N. peacekeepers from the Philippines in a demilitarized zone between Syria and the portion of the Golan Heights that Israel captured in 1967. They released them in March 2013.
The only known insurgent groups affiliated to Islamic State with a presence in the area are further east in Deraa province, in a rugged desert area known as Laja, north of the mainly Druze-inhabited city of Sweida.
Apart from territory controlled by Syrian government forces, large parts of the south are held by the Southern Front, a coalition of mainly Western-backed non-jihadist insurgent groups.
The dominant jihadi group said on Twitter that ISIS man in Daraa Abu Ali al Braidi, (Dubbed: Al Khal), or The Uncle, has been killed with number of his comrades in 'a "heroic" suicide bombing.
A source in the area said a suicide bomber
had blown himself up in a building in the Yarmouk Martyrs' stronghold
of Jamla, a town near the Syrian Golan Heights and close to the border
with Israel and Jordan in southwestern Deraa province
Footage posted online by Nusra showed three fighters from Yarmouk Martyrs admitting that their group had pledged allegiance to ISIS in mid January 2014.
Nusra Front and Islamic State are the two most powerful rebel groups fighting government forces in Syria and have been fighting each other since 2013 largely because of a power struggle between their leaders.
Last June fierce fighting erupted between Yarmouk Martyrs and Nusra backed by Ahrar al-Sham movement that ended by a fragile truce.
Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade gained attention when they abducted 21 U.N. peacekeepers from the Philippines in a demilitarized zone between Syria and the portion of the Golan Heights that Israel captured in 1967. They released them in March 2013.
The only known insurgent groups affiliated to Islamic State with a presence in the area are further east in Deraa province, in a rugged desert area known as Laja, north of the mainly Druze-inhabited city of Sweida.
Apart from territory controlled by Syrian government forces, large parts of the south are held by the Southern Front, a coalition of mainly Western-backed non-jihadist insurgent groups.
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