...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...rebel group denied it is preparing for a new battle in northern Syria as the Syrian Army mulls full-scale offensive.
“The reports released by SOHR about going for a new battle in Aleppo are groundless”, Jaish al-Islam spokesman, Hamza Bayraqdar, said.
Bayraqdar added that the monitor group didn’t cited an official source from Jaish al-Islam, rather its reports were merely speculations.
“We just released footage for the group’s general commander, Issam Bwaidani, while touring our fighters’ positions in northern countryside of Aleppo”, he commented.
Last week, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed it had obtained ‘credible information’ about recently-made deployments for Jaish al-Islam fighters.
Thousands of the Saudi-backed militants were evacuated with their families to Syria’s north coming from East Ghouta region as per a deal with the Syrian government.