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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Militant group appoints new leader: Syria
2014-09-10
[Pak Daily Times] Syrian: Death Eater group Ahrar al-Sham has appointed a new leader and military chief after their predecessors were killed in a blast on Tuesday, a video statement from the group said.

The kaboom in northwestern Syria killed at least 12 including Ahrar al-Sham's leader Hassan Aboud, according to the hardline group, part of the Islamic Front alliance that has been fighting Islamic State turbans as well as the Syrian army.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group that monitors the conflict, said an kaboom killed 28 of Ahrar al-Sham's commanders, dealing a major blow to the group.

In a video statement, Ahrar al-Sham said that its council had appointed Hashem al-Sheikh, also known as Abu Jaber, as leader and Abu Saleh Tahan as military chief. It pledged to keep fighting against Syrian government forces and Islamic State.

Some 50 of the group's leaders had been gathered at a house when the blast went off inside the meeting, according to the observatory. There has been no claim of responsibility for the blast, which took place in Syria's Idlib province.

Some observers have described Tuesday's incident as a gas attack. Abu Baraa, a rebel figure from a group allied with Ahrar al-Sham, said a doctor who examined the bodies said that there was little visible sign of external injuries.

The doctor saw bodies with frothing at the mouth and fluid coming from the eyes and noses, Abu Baraa said, adding the group had been meeting in was an heavily fortified underground bunker.

"This was a highly sophisticated attack in a location that was very secure," he said. It was not possible to independently verify any of the reports about the incident or the cause of the deaths.

In January another senior Ahrar al-Sham leader, Abu Khaled al-Soury, was killed in a suicide kaboom. Soury had fought alongside al Qaeda founder the late Osama bin Laden
... who doesn't live anywhere anymore...
and was close to its current chief Ayman al-Zawahri. Islamic State, also known as ISIL, denied involvement in that attack after being blamed for it.

Ahrar al-Sham, at one point considered among the strongest hard boy groups in the civil war. But it has been overtaken by the radical State group, which has seized territory in Syria and Iraq and which considers other Death Eater groups as its rivals.

US Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
began a tour of the Middle East on Wednesday aimed at building military, political and financial support to defeat Islamic State.
Posted by:Fred

#1  Ahrar al-Sham - This one of those "moderate" groups that Obammy wants to arm?
Posted by: AlanC   2014-09-10 13:28  

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