A newly formed al-Mujahideen Army pledged to cleanse
Syrian lands from any presence for the powerful al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), rebel commander told Zaman Alwasl.
On Saturday, Syrian rebels
battled ISIL fighters across the north-west of the country, Reuters reported.
The apparently coordinated
strikes against the ISIL come after months of increasing resentment of the
powerful al-Qaeda-linked group, whose radical foreign jihadists alienated many
ordinary Syrians in the rebel-held territory.
Activists said dozens of
fighters were killed in the clashes between rival rebel groups which have raged
in Aleppo and Idlib provinces since Friday.
ISIL has mobilized its troops near
the highway of Al-Bab city at the gate of Aleppo city as more reinforcements
from Azaz had come to back the radical group that faces unexpected revolt by
Syrian rebels, Zaman Alwasl source said.
Al Mujahideen Army has declared war
on ISIL and joined other opposition groups in battling the extremists. For its
part, Syria’s main opposition National Coalition says it backs the rebel fight
against al-Qaeda.
“We, the Army of the Mujahideen,
pledge to defend ourselves and our honor, wealth and lands, and to fight ISIL,
which has violated the rule of God, until it announces its dissolution,” said
the new alliance of eight groups, in a statement published on Facebook Friday.
As the statement was issued, it
fought in fierce clashes with the ISIL in the Aleppo and Idlib provinces of
northern Syria.
The Islamic Front, the largest rebel
alliance, which is made up of several powerful Islamist groups, and the Syrian
Revolutionaries Front, another major rebel bloc, also battled ISIL on Friday,
Agence France-Presse reported.
On Saturday, rebels battling
jihadists in northern Syria killed or captured scores of the militants loyal to
an al-Qaeda affiliate in two days of fighting, a watchdog said.
“At least 36 members and supporters
of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have been killed since
Friday in Idlib and more than 100 have been captured by rebels” in Idlib and
Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Activists also said that Islamic rebels fighting in
Syria have given ISIL 24 hours to surrender.
Ahmad al-Khatib, an activist in the Jabal al-Zawiya
region in northwestern Idlib, said Islamic rebels have given ISIL members an
ultimatum to surrender by Saturday afternoon.
Opposition backs fight against
al-Qaeda
“The Syrian Opposition Coalition
fully supports ongoing efforts by Free Syrian Army elements to liberate towns
and neighborhoods from the authoritarian oppression” of the Islamic State of
Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the group’s presidency said in a statement.
“The Coalition stands in full
solidarity with all Syrians rising up against al-Qaeda’s extremism and calls
upon the international community to recognize the importance of supporting
revolutionary forces as partners in the fight against al-Qaeda’s extremism and Assad’s
sponsorship and encouragement of extremist forces,” it added.
For its part, the Army of Mujahideen,
a newly formed group made up of eight brigades, demanded that ISIL fighters
join the ranks of other rebel groups “or hand over their weapons and leave
Syria,” earlier on Saturday.
The alliance reproached ISIL for
“spreading strife and insecurity... in liberated [rebel] areas, spilling the
blood of fighters and wrongly accusing them of heresy, and expelling them and
their families from areas they have paid heavily to free” from Assad’s forces.
ISIL backed by Assad
A high-ranking Syrian rebel army official told
Al Arabiya News Channel Saturday that the ISIL is “a group of gangsters
following” Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, Iran and Iraq.
The Secretary General of
the Free Syrian Army, Captain Ammar al-Wawi, said the sole aim of ISIL is to
“hijack the Syrian revolution,” which began after protests against Syrian
President al-Assad in March 2011 transformed into a civil war.
Speaking from the
Syrian-Turkish borders via Skype, Captain al-Wawi said ISIL “deliberately
committed atrocities on Syrian soil, including killing and kidnapping many
members of different groups and religious sects in Syria.”
The rebel commander showed
a picture of a man named Mohammad Mustapha Faham, who appeared as a bearded
ISIL fighter, but was supposedly a Syrian regime intelligence officer.
Another person he
presented was Mohammad Bassem Yasseen, also known as Abu al-Baraa al-Samaraei,
who entered Syria as an ISIL fighter, but targeted activists serving the
“Syrian revolution.”
The captain described the
majority of ISIL fighters as attempting to kill and arrest both activists and
rebels.
He added that ISIL
surrounded a hospital in Jisr al-Shaghour city in Idlib province on Friday and
killed a doctor that goes by the name Abu Rayan.
He also said the al-Qaeda
group has arrested some of the demonstration organizers in other regions.
ISIL says behind Beirut
bombing
The Islamic State on
Saturday claimed responsibility for the suicide car bombing last week in the
stronghold of the “criminal” Shiite militant group Hezbollah.
ISIL penetrated the “security system of the Party of Satan (Hezbollah)... and crush its strongholds... in a first small payment from the heavy account that is awaiting those wicked criminals,” Agence France-Presse quoted the al-Qaeda-linked group as saying in a statement posted onto a website page used by Sunni militants.
The bombing, which took
place Thursday in Beirut’s Haret Hreik district, killed at least five people
and wounded 77.
It was the latest in a
wave of attacks to hit Lebanon in recent months as Syria’s civil war spills
into its smaller neighbor.
Hezbollah’s fighters are
aiding Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a civil war that pits him largely
against Sunni Muslims, including ISIL.
The army, meanwhile, said
Saturday that a young man from northern Lebanon was the bomber who blew himself
up.
“The DNA test results on
the remains of a suicide attacker found in the car used in the bomb attack...
confirm they belong to the youth Qutaiba al-Satem,” said the army.
It added: “Investigations
are ongoing by the relevant judicial authorities to uncover the full details of
the event.”
An official from Satem’s
native Sunni-majority area of Wadi Khaled told AFP on Friday suspicions over
the 20-year-old’s role were based on a family document found at the scene of
the blast. (With Agencies)
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