A group linked to al Qaeda, emboldened by its recent victory over rival rebels in Syria, has imposed sweeping restrictions on personal freedoms in the northern province of Raqqa as it seeks to consolidate control over the region.
Reuters obtained copies of four statements issued on Sunday by the
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) prohibiting music from being
played in public and photographs of people being posted in shop
windows.
The sale of cigarettes and shisha water
pipes are banned, women must wear the niqab, or full face veil, in
public and men are obliged to attend Friday prayers at a mosque.
The directives, which cite Koranic verses and Islamic teaching, are the
latest evidence of ISIL's ambition to establish a Syrian state founded
on radical Islamist principles.
ISIL is widely
considered the most radical of the rebel groups fighting forces loyal to
President Bashar al-Assad, and increasingly each other, in Syria's
civil war.
The first and only city to have
fallen completely under rebel control, Raqqa has been held up by many
ordinary Syrians as an example of what Syria might look like in a
post-Assad era.
The anti-Assad Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group with
sources across the country, said ISIL was turning its attention to
setting up such a state after repelling an offensive earlier this month
by rival Islamists and more moderate rebels.
The
Observatory said ISIL was posting the statements at mosques and other
public places on Monday. The statements gave residents three days to
start complying or face unspecified punishments "in accordance with
sharia", or Islamic law.
REBEL INFIGHTING
The expansion of ISIL last year alarmed Western nations and helped
Assad portray himself as the only secular alternative to Islamist
extremism.
"ISIL was strong before in Raqqa, but now it's the only force there," said Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Observatory.
Ahrar al-Sham and the Nusra Front, two Islamist rebel factions fighting
to bring down Assad's government, tried to prevent the sale of tobacco
when they ruled the city briefly last year.
But
ISIL emerged as the dominant player and outraged residents by carrying
out executions in a public square, patrolling the streets in black masks
and turning government buildings into headquarters and prisons.
The group's statements - its most extensive yet - were unlikely to face
opposition given last week's expulsion of Ahrar, Nusra and other rebel
factions.
ISIL had pulled out of Raqqa and other
towns in northern Syria earlier this month after an Islamist rebel
alliance attacked its strongholds, taking advantage of popular
resentment of the group's foreign commanders, its killing of other
rebels and the drive to impose a strict interpretation of Islamic law.
But ISIL regrouped, using snipers, truck-mounted commando units and suicide bombers to retake much of the lost territory.
Fighting among rebels has killed hundreds of people in the last three
weeks and challenged ISIL's grip over large swathes of northern Syria.
Rival rebel factions continue to clash over territory in Aleppo and
Idlib provinces, where ISIL has been weakened in the past three weeks.
The Daoud Brigade, a rebel faction composed mainly of Syrians which has
pledged loyalty to ISIL, issued a statement on Monday calling for an
end to fighting among rivals.
The group said it
had reached a "partial solution to end the bloodshed in the eastern
suburbs of Idlib" through a ceasefire with other rebels and a renewed
focus on fighting the government.
The statement
said the Daoud Brigade sought to expand the ceasefire to the rest of
Syria, but the impact of the call was not immediately clear.
Reuters
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