UN Sets Date for Syrian Peace Talks

He was commander of the Islam Army, a Saudi-backed militant group located in several Syrian areas, mainly in the Eastern Ghouta Countryside of the capital Damascus.

The deaths are a setback to the rebels groups that are fighting both Assad and the Islamic State group. Zahran Alloush, the leader of the Jaysh al-Islam group, was killed on Friday in an air strike claimed by Syrian government forces. Several rebel group commanders have been killed in the past – including most of the command of the ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham group in a mysterious bombing in northern Syria previous year.

Defence experts say Alloush’s killing, combined with the disarray among the rebel forces, could strengthen Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s control over the rest of the area.

An agreed-on pullout of a couple of thousand Syrian militants, together with ISIS fighters, & their families from a neighborhood on the southern fringe of Damascus has-been put on hold, in accordance to an official.

The UK-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said it was paused for “logistic reasons” in order to secure the road to IS-held Raqqa in the north-east.

The group took part in a Syrian opposition meeting in Riyadh earlier this month that was meant to determine who would represent the rebels in negotiations with the Syrian government. This image made from video made available on Saturday, Dec. 26, 2015, by Al-Mayadeen, government-controlled Syrian Television, which has been verified and is consistent with other AP reporting shows, drone footage allegedly…

The UN envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said on Saturday that it aimed to start the talks on January 25 in Geneva.

Analysts expect Alloush’s death to have profound ripple effects on Syria’s fragmented rebel movement as well as budding peace talks.

Zahran was considered a credible and charismatic leader who had united various rebel groups.

Other insurgent groups, including the al-Qaeda branch in Syria, the Nusra Front, lamented his killing.

The Syrian army confirmed the death of Zahran Alloush, whose Jaysh al Islam grouping has thousands of fighters and is the biggest rebel faction in the area. Syria later said it was carried out by its own air force, but it is not thought to have the capability for precision strikes.

“Add to that the fact that the Islam Army’s dominance has created so much resentment among other factions over the years, and the situation seems very unstable”, Lund wrote in an analysis for the popular Syria Comment blog. That includes the primacy of Jabhat al-Nusrah, Jaysh al-Islam, Liwa-al-Islam, and ultimately also the self-proclaimed Islamic State, a.k.a. ISIL, ISIS or Daesh.

An estimated 2,000 Islamic State group fighters have backed down from a planned evacuation of Damascus, after a key rebel leader was killed.

The Islam Army was the main rebel group responsible for the daily mortar attacks against civilian areas inside Damascus. Rights groups have alleged indiscriminate use of cluster munitions by the Russians in their attacks.

“He occupied a space between the extremists and the Free Syrian Army, which was important to hold off the spread of IS in the short term and unify the rebels vis-a-vis the regime in the long term”, says Tabler.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the slaying.