Air strike reportedly kills top Syria rebel commander Zahran Allouch

The commander of a Syrian rebel group that controls the eastern suburbs of Damascus was killed by an air strike Friday, weeks before his faction was to attend peace talks with the Assad government in Geneva.

If governments are serious about the global warming targets they adopted in Paris, scientists say they have two options: eliminating fossil fuels immediately or finding ways to undo their damage to the climate system in the future.

A plan to evacuate thousands of extremist fighters and civilians from Damascus on Saturday has stalled after a powerful Syrian rebel leader was killed in a Russian air strike a day earlier.

Islamic State has a large presence in several southern neighbourhoods of Damascus, including the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk.

In a separate development that underlined the rapidly changing military situation, a U.S-backed alliance of Syrian Kurds and Arab rebel groups said it had captured a dam from Islamic State yesterday, cutting a main supply route of the militants across the Euphrates.

A Palestinian official in Damascus confirmed the deal, but stressed that Palestinian factions were not part of it. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secret negotiations over the deal, said it was struck between representatives of the Syrian state and some rebel factions – presumably negotiating on behalf of the Islamic State. The Syrian government has repeatedly referred to Allouch and his group as “terrorists”.

But al-Moallem also indicated Damascus could opt out of the talks if it was dissatisfied with participants from the opposition ranks.

His death comes a month before peace talks between the Syrian government and the opposition are scheduled to begin in Geneva. The military spokesman said in a statement that supported by the Syrian and Russian air forces, the army units in cooperation with the popular defense groups successfully fought and faced the terrorist organizations and achieved advance in many directions inflicting heavy loses upon terrorists in Damascus, Daraa, Sweida, Lattakia, Aleppo, Hama and Homs.

The UN says 12.2 million people, including more than 5.6 million children, remain in need of humanitarian assistance in Syria.

They are expected to include members of ISIL and Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front.

The Army of Islam group swiftly appointed Essam al-Buwaydhani, a field commander known as Abu Hammam, as the new leader of the group, replacing Alloush.

“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. Alloush was a leading figure in the rebel movement in Damascus province, and had been holding a senior-level meeting in Eastern Ghouta when he was killed.

In July, they drew condemnation for executing 18 alleged members of the Islamic State group in a video mimicking IS’s own gruesome productions.

He is blamed by other opposition groups for the December 2013 disappearance of four prominent activists, including human rights activist and lawyer Razan Zaytouni.

Syria’s army command reportedly said it had conducted the operation that killed Alloush as part of its “national mission”.

Alloush, who was released by the Syrian authorities at the start of the conflict in 2011 when it let scores of Islamist detainees go free, had been criticised for a crackdown on dissidents in the areas he controlled.