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Top Syrian rebel leader reported killed in airstrike

Zahran Alloush, head of the Islam Army, a Syrian rebel group, speaks during the wedding of a fighter in the group on July 21, 2015, in the rebel-held town of Douma, Syria. Alloush was reported killed in an air strike on Friday.

Zahran Alloush, head of the Islam Army, a Syrian rebel group, speaks during the wedding of a fighter in the group on July 21, 2015, in the rebel-held town of Douma, Syria. Alloush was reported killed in an air strike on Friday.

(Amer Almohibany / AFP/Getty Images)
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A top-level Syrian rebel commander was killed in an airstrike near the capital, Damascus, on Friday, government officials and rebels said, along with more than 20 of his Islamist comrades.

Syrian security forces took credit for launching an air attack on a meeting in the eastern Ghouta region, northeast of Damascus, of opposition commanders from groups including Zahran Alloush’s Islam Army (Jaysh al Islam), Ahrar al Sham and Falyaq al Rahman.

Alloush along with his brother was reported among those killed.

The Islam Army, regarded as the among the most powerful rebel groups in the Damascus area, is part of the Islamic Front alliance with links to Al Qaeda.

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Abu Azzam Ansari, the nom de guerre of a prominent Ahrar al Sham commander, confirmed Alloush’s death on Twitter on Friday, saying he had gotten “martyrdom in the name of God.”

A Lebanese broadcaster close to the Syrian government aired video said to be from the strike, which it claimed was on a farm where the rebel leaders were meeting to “organize operations” against pro-government forces.

Alloush, a one-time building contractor and son of an influential Salafist preacher now living in Saudi Arabia, was arrested in 2009 on charges of weapons possession and placed in prison.

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But in 2011, three months after anti-government protests began against Syrian President Bashar Assad, he was released as part of a general amnesty, and soon took up arms.

He formed the Islam Battalion, a rebel faction that, due to deft political maneuverings and his strong links to Saudi Arabia, emerged as the nucleus of the Islam Army, a conglomerate of 55 rebel factions based in the Ghouta, according to the group’s charter.

Jaysh al Islam regularly launched rocket barrages into Damascus. The government, meanwhile, has mounted a punishing siege on Ghouta since 2013 and has conducted dozens of airstrikes against its population.

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Alloush also became an important figure in rebel circles beyond the Ghouta, and was at one time seen as a potentially unifying force for the opposition.

However, his sectarian rhetoric against Syria’s Alawite and Shiite minorities, and calls for an Islamic system of governance and shunning of democracy aroused concern among Western observers.

He was also accused of the “disappearing” of Syrian civil rights activist and human rights lawyer Razan Zaitouneh, who was taken, along with her husband and two other colleagues, from her office in the Islam Army-controlled area of Douma in December of 2013.

Bulos is a special correspondent. Times staff writer Patrick McDonnell also contributed to this report.

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