Hezbollah and Iraqi Shia militia are concentrated near the Shia shrine of Sayeda Zeinab in Damascus. They have used that area as a staging ground to attack Free Syrian Army strongholds. FSA’s allies al Nusra Front retaliated by destroying a Hezbollah command center near the shrine.
Hezbollah is getting a taste of it’s own medicine. The organization that pioneered suicide bombing is suffer losses due to those tactics. History has a sick sense of humor.
In other development, the presence of the real al-Qaeda under the name of The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) is now putting al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Nusra Front in better light. Unlike their parent organization, there agenda is Sunni Syrian Nationalism.
But the newcomer, with its high proportion of foreign fighters, has eclipsed Jabhat al-Nusra as it enforces bans on smoking, forces women to wear the veil, carries out public executions and clashes with other rebel groups in an attempt to gain control in opposition areas.
Amid concerns about ISIS’s expansionist plans, other groups are looking to Jabhat al-Nusra as a counterbalance and have been teaming up with Jabhat al-Nusra on the battlefield.
Jabhat al-Nusra fighters say the group itself is changing, benefited from a drift of its more extreme members to ISIS and helping the group to present itself as a more mainstream — and more Syrian — force.
[….]
“Of course this had an effect,” he explained. “Now with Jabhat we are more moderate with the people. The foreigners would see if you aren’t wearing a veil they might threaten to kill you. We would explain why it was haram [forbidden] and say you should stop. You make a choice.”
Nusra Front is more dangerous than their al-Qaeda parents.
Tags: al Nusra Front, Free Syrian Army, Syria War
