...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful...(Army of Islam) is on the verge of collapse in the East Ghouta region of rural Damascus, as the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) prepares to surround one of the most important villages under Islamist control.
On Friday, the Syrian Arab Army's 105th Brigade of the Republican Guard, backed by the Paleostine Liberation Army (PLA) and National Defense Forces (NDF), launched a new assault at al-Reyhan, capturing a number of farms from Jaish al-Islam near the village's eastern flank.
According to a military source in Damascus, the Syrian Armed Forces killed 13 Jaish al-Islam turbans, while also reaching the gates of al-Reyhan tonight after an intense battle.
If the Syrian Armed Forces are successful in their military endeavor to capture al-Reyhan, then Jaish al-Islam will find themselves surrounded at the key mountaintop village of Tal Kurdi near Douma and 'Adra.