Powerful Syrian Rebel Leader Reported Killed in Airstrike
By ANNE BARNARD

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The commander of one of the most powerful Syrian insurgent groups in the suburbs of the Syrian capital, Damascus, was killed Friday in an airstrike, according to the government and its opponents. The death of the commander, Zahran Alloush, is a significant blow to the armed opposition, bolstering President Bashar al-Assad ahead of a planned new round of peace talks.

Mr. Alloush led the Army of Islam, a group that had recently agreed to participate in a political process seeking to end the five-year-old conflict. The Army of Islam is regarded by the Syrian government and its most powerful ally, Russia, as a sectarian, terrorist group that differs little from more extremist groups like the Islamic State.

Local opposition figures reached in Damascus said the airstrikes had been carried out by Russian warplanes, but that information was not immediately confirmed by Russian or Syrian officials.

Analysts said the strikes were in keeping with longstanding efforts by the Syrian government and its allies to eliminate groups claiming to occupy a middle ground between Mr. Assad and the Islamic State. The efforts are part of a broader objective to improve Mr. Assad’s standing among Western governments, which despise him but also see the Islamic State as an increasing menace.

The Army of Islam sent members to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, this month for talks among opposition groups aimed at choosing representatives for a third round of international peace talks, scheduled for early 2016.

Mr. Alloush and his faction had not been universally accepted in the Syrian opposition — they are widely blamed for the disappearance of four secular opposition activists from the Damascus suburb of Douma. But unlike harder-line armed groups, the Army of Islam has shown a recent interest in taking part in politics, said Ibrahim Hamidi, a Syrian correspondent for Al Hayat, a pan-Arab newspaper.

Mr. Hamidi, who opposes the Syrian government, said that by having successfully targeted Mr. Alloush, Mr. Assad and his Russian allies had demonstrated their desire to pursue a military solution. “This is a rejection of the Riyadh talks,” he said.

The Army of Islam controls much of the urban sprawl east of Damascus known as East Ghouta, an area that has been under blockade and bombardment by government forces for the better part of four years.

Government supporters welcomed Mr. Alloush’s death, blaming him for periodic shelling of civilian areas in Damascus. Government opponents said he had been instrumental in restraining more extremist groups from unleashing worse attacks on the city.

The opponents also argue that the Army of Islam, which sees the Islamic State as an enemy and competitor, has been crucial in keeping that group from encroaching closer to Damascus, and that weakening it could open the door to advances by the fighters of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL.

The Army of Islam could be particularly vulnerable because it was organized around a single charismatic individual, more so than many other rebel groups.

“Big day for supporters of ISIS and the Assad regime,” Hassan Hassan, a co-author of “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror,” posted on Twitter, adding that Mr. Alloush’s group was “without a doubt one of the very earliest” of Syrian insurgent movements “to systematically fight ISIS & its cells.”

At the same time, Mr. Alloush had enemies and critics among fellow opponents of the government. Some insurgents have long accused him of making lucrative deals with the government or hoarding Saudi-supplied arms rather than using them to help overmatched insurgents in other areas around Damascus.

Mr. Alloush, a religiously conservative Sunni Muslim, had a history of making sectarian statements. But after having met with American officials recently, he softened his tone.

In interviews with the McClatchy news service he denounced sectarian or partisan rule of Syria, and said he believed that the country should be governed by a “technocratic, professional” body.

His faction had allowed a group of secular activists from Damascus, including Razan Zeitouneh, an award-winning human rights lawyer, to be based in Douma, but in 2013 they were kidnapped after having criticized the Army of Islam.

Mr. Alloush recently denied that his group had been behind their disappearance, but his death leaves friends of the missing activists concerned that they have lost their main channel for recovering them.

The strike on Mr. Alloush — which activists said took place as he met with another insurgent group, Ahrar al-Sham — came as Islamic State fighters prepared to evacuate from the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, south of Damascus, in a deal involving the government, the Islamic State, other Syrian insurgent groups, Palestinian factions and the United Nations.

The details of the deal remained unclear, but part of the objective was to allow some civilians to leave the camp and to increase humanitarian access to it. Thousands of people face severe hunger and unsanitary conditions in the camp, which has long been besieged.

The deal also was said to involve safe passage for Islamic State fighters inside Yarmouk to the group’s headquarters in Raqqa in eastern Syria.

他死於空襲 「敘抗軍最大損失」

法新社報導，監看組織和敘利亞反對派人士指出，敘國反抗軍中的主力「伊斯蘭軍」（Jaysh al-Islam）首領艾洛斯（Zahran Alloush）在首都大馬士革東部遭到殺害。

分析家李斯特（Charles Lister）在推特上表示，在敘國近五年來動亂中，艾洛斯的死「代表著反對派最重大的損失之一」。

敘利亞人權瞭望台組織說，艾洛斯和其他五名指揮官「在東古塔區以他們會議為目標的空襲中」喪生。

國營電視台報導，這個「伊斯蘭軍」集團首領和其他數名助手被埋在瓦礫中。

44歲的艾洛斯死訊獲得敘國反對派組織敘利亞全國聯盟領袖在推特上證實，並發表哀悼訊息。

此外，俄羅斯國防部25日告訴記者，俄國空軍9月30日於敘利亞展開空襲以來，已發動5240架次空襲，其中長程戰略轟炸機已執行145架次空襲。而在25日就有189架次空襲。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/26/world/middleeast/zahran-alloush-syria-rebel-leader-reported-killed.html

2015-12-27 世界日報 編譯中心