Al-Qaeda affiliate group, Jabhat al-Nusra
Leader Abu Mohammed al-Joulani had visited border town with Iraq earlier this
month, reliable source told Zaman Alwasl.
Joulani called his fighters
in al-Shahil town for more achievement and progress in the eastern area of Deir
EzZor province in the face of increaing gains of the State of Iraq and al-Sham
(ISIS) gains which controls day after day more areas.
Senior commander in Rebels Free Army in the
city of Abu Kamal said Joulani had scolded his fighters in the eastern regions,
criticizing their performance and inability
to control of the rural areas in
Deir Ez-Zour.
Jabhat al-Nusra and the
Islamic state of Iraq
In mid-2011, the
al-Qa’ida-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq sent a group to Syria to create a
jihadi movement. In January 2012, it emerged as Jabhat al-Nusra with a string
of suicide bombings. Declared a terrorist group by the US since December 2012,
Jabhat al-Nusra has co-operated with other rebels on the ground but shunned
alliances. In April, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic state declared
a merger of the Iraqi group with Jabhat al-Nusra under the name Islamic State
of Iraq and al-Sham. This was opposed by Nusra’s leader, but Baghdadi
persisted, backed by many foreign jihadis. Both groups are in Syria, the
dispute unresolved.
The al-Nusra Front, the
principle jihadi rebel group in Syria, defies the cliche of Islamist fighters
around the Middle East plotting to establish Islamic caliphates from
impoverished mountain hideaways. In north-eastern Syria, al-Nusra finds itself
in command of massive silos of wheat, factories, oil and gas fields, fleets of
looted government cars and a huge weapons arsenal.
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