...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...a final deadline to surrender their positions in the eastern part of the Qalamoun Mountains, Damascus Now reported this afternoon.
According to the Syria-based news site, the Syrian Army gave Jaish al-Islam, today, a deadline to surrender the eastern Qalamoun towns of Jayroud, al-Mansourah, al-Nasariyah, al-Rahbiyah, and al-TnahJayroud, al-Mansourah, al-Nasariyah, al-Rahbiyah, and al-Atnah.
No date was released by Damascus Now regarding the deadline.
A military source in Damascus recently informed al-Masdar that the Russian Reconciliation Center had postponed talks with Jaish al-Islam in the eastern Qalamoun.
The reason for the Russian postponement was due to the ongoing evacuation of the East Ghouta region; they will shift their attention to the eastern Qalamoun shortly after the last Jaish al-Islam murderous Moslems leave Douma.