Insurgents Take Atman — Have They Cut Off Daraa Province From Damascus?

MONDAY FEATURE

  • Document: Al Qa’eda Disavows Islamic State of Iraq and as-Sham
  • Lebanon: Latest Suicide Bombing in South Beirut Kills at Least 2
  • Week Past, Week Ahead: Syria — Assad Regime Chooses Bombs Over Geneva II’s Talks

    UPDATE 1530 GMT: Activists report more than 90 barrel bombs dropped on Aleppo on Monday:

    The deadly escalation in regime bombing moved to Aleppo this weekend, with an estimated 200 people dying in and near Syria’s largest city.

    After 115 deaths in Aleppo Province on Saturday, the Local Coordination Committees said another 88 were killed on Sunday

    The Committee said 136 people died across Syria yesterday, including 27 children and 12 women.

    A report by activists on Sunday summarized weeks of bombing in Darayya, a strategic suburb of Damascus, in “a military escalation by the regime’s forces not seen since the storm (of August 2012)”.

    The report said about 220 barrel bombs had been dropped on the suburb, which lies between southern Damascus and Daraa Province in southern Syria. It estimated casualties at 30 dead and 50 wounded.

    Despite the aerial attacks, the Free Syrian Army had been able to maintain its control on much of the ground, destroying military armor and inflicting casualties, according to the report.

    The activists said the remaining residents were “suffering from a severe shortage of food and medicine as a result of the siege” by the Syrian military.

    Insurgents have declared a re-structured force to counter the attacks by the Syrian regime.

    Insurgents Take Atman — Have They Cut Off Daraa Province From Damascus?

    Claimed footage of insurgents touring military positions and checkpoints that they overran in Atman (see map), just north of Daraa city in southern Syria:

    Opposition activists claims that this victory cuts off regime movement from Damascus to Daraa.

    Reports: Al Qa’eda Disavows Islamic State of Iraq and as-Sham

    Reports are circulating that Al Qa’eda has disavowed the Islamic State of Iraq and as-Sham, after the Iraqi-led faction refused its instructions on jihad in Syria.

    A claimed statement chides ISIS for not accepting the ruling, issued since last spring by Al Qa’eda’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, that Jabhat al-Nusra represents Al Qa’eda in Syria.

    “Al Qa’eda announces that it does not link itself with (ISIS)…. It is not a branch of the al Qaeda group, does not have an organisational relationship with it and (Al Qa’eda) is not the group responsible for their actions,”

    Al-Zawahiri issued the ruling after he was asked to mediate when ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his leadership of the jihadist movement and Jabhat al-Nusra refused the proclamation.

    Last month, al-Zawahiri put out another statement which appeared to say that the choice of ISIS or Jabhat al-Nusra was up to the Syrian people; however, the conflict escalated in early January amid ISIS’s fighting with insurgents across much of Syria.

    Saudi Cleric Denounces Islamic State of Iraq for Rejecting Peace With Insurgents

    Abdullah bin Mohammed al-Moheisini, the Saudi cleric who launched the “Umma Initiative” to end the month-long fighting between insurgents and the Islamic State of Iraq, has criticized ISIS for failing to accept reconciliation.

    Al-Moheisini said in an audio message on Sunday that ISIS had rejected a Sharia court to mediate the dispute, which broke out at the start of January across northern and eastern Syria, and denied that there was a war against the Iraqi-led faction: “We don’t deny oppressions by FSA (Free Syrian Army) and others, but ISIS claims to be an Islamic state, on what basis does an Islamic state do this?”