Warplane kills leader of key Syrian rebel group

Jaysh al-Islam is said to have named Abu Hammam Bouwaidani as the successor of Alloush.

As part of a deal sponsored by the United Nations, the evacuation of more than 2,000 Islamic State militants and other fighters from rebel-held areas of south Damascus has been delayed. The militants earlier this year had overrun the Yarmouk area, home to a Palestinian refugee camp, which has been hotly contested and fought-over in the war. But Shiite powerhouse Iran is not part of the new coalition; neither are Iraq and Syria, whose forces are battling to regain ground from the Islamic State group and whose governments are allied with Tehran.

The Syrian air force carried out a total of 168 airstrikes against 590 rebel targets in several areas between the 17th and 26th of this month, the statement said, stressing that the army is more determined to continue its war on terror groups until restoring security and stability to Syria.

Alloush, 44, was the commander of Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam), the predominant opposition faction in the Eastern Ghouta rebel bastion east of Damascus.

It was a blow to the forces fighting against the government of Bashar Assad.

A top Syrian rebel leader is believed to have been killed following an airstrike on a suburb of the capital city Damascus.

A file picture taken June 25, 2014 shows Zahran Allouch, the leader of Jaish al-Islam (Islam Army), speaking during a press conference in the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta region outside the capital Damascus.

But there have also been reports that while on regional visits to countries hostile to Assad’s government including Turkey and Saudi Arabia, Alloush failed to win the support he wanted for his group.

Meanwhile many observers believe the killing of powerful rebel commander Zahran Allouc will dramatically shift the balance of power in rebel-held suburbs of Damascus. He has denied holding them, although they were abducted from an area under the control of the Army of Islam. Those moved are expected to include members of the ISIS group and Al Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front. The air strikes destroyed a convoy of vehicles on al-Teibeh – al-Sukhneh road and three headquarters for ISIS terrorists in Mhein and al-Hadath in Homs countryside in addition to command headquarters for Ahrar al-Sham movement in Atshan and a depot for Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist organization in al-Lattamneh in Hama countryside.

Critics have accused Jaysh al-Islam of methods comparable to those of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) militants, as it reportedly resorts to the same inhumane methods used by the terrorist group, including public executions of prisoners.

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. Such attacks have killed and wounded scores of civilians.

Geneva was the site of two rounds of U.N.-brokered peace talks early past year between Assad’s government and rebels who have been fighting him since March 2011.

“Their political philosophy and blueprint for the future is largely based on a similar reading of Islamic history and the Qur’an”.