Lines blur in efforts to stop ISIL’s march on south Syria
Ambush by Jihad Army near Israeli border raises the curtain on a complicated conflict being played out by an even more complex cast of militant players
AMMAN // The struggle to stop ISIL spreading into southern Syria has burst into the open.
Moderate rebels and hardline factions including Jabhat Al Nusra are fighting militants connected to the extremists near the Israeli border.
At least 47 fighters have been killed over two weeks in ambushes, kidnappings and shootings.
The fighting has opened up a complex conflict on the southern front, where Syria’s uprising began in March 2011 and where rebels held on to a faltering unity in their war against president Bashar Al Assad and his allies, Hizbollah and Iran.
The fighting started on April 27 when a shadowy faction known as the Jihad Army carried out a surprise attack on a moderate rebel unit called Ahrar Nawa.
Ahrar Nawa is backed by the Military Operations Command (MOC), a secret control centre in Amman staffed by military personnel from western and Gulf states.
Nine of its fighters were killed and three wounded in the ambush at Al Qahtaniyeh, near the border with Israel, opposition activists said. The 19-man Ahrar Nawa squad was on its way to attack forces loyal to Mr Al Assad at the time.
Fighting under the black flag of ISIL – reportedly the first time it has been raised on the southern front – the Jihad Army also captured 20 fighters from the MOC-affiliated First Army and laid siege to a field hospital used by rebels in Al Maabar.
It is unclear how close to ISIL the Jihad Army is or whether it has pledged allegiance to leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.
ISIL has spread to 11 countries including Libya, Yemen and Nigeria.
Rebel commanders said the MOC was treating the Jihad Army as part of ISIL and a serious threat. “The Jihad Army has been a clandestine army. These are ISIL sleeper cells and now they have emerged,” said Bashar Al Zoubi, commander of the Yarmouk Army, a powerful rebel faction on the southern front. Last Tuesday, the Yarmouk Army attacked Jihad Army command posts in Al Qahtaniyeh and Quneitra.
“We have sent forces to deal with them. We will not allow ISIL here. They know that they do not have a place for them in the south because our response was tough.”
Fighting back
Various moderate rebel factions, still known as the Free Syrian Army (FSA), responded to the first ambush in Al Qahtaniyeh but quickly scaled down their operations, allowing Nusra to take the lead.
The Al Qaeda affiliate has been at war with ISIL throughout Syria, often coming out second best. Key Nusra commanders and fighters in the south were previously in the eastern desert province of Deir Ezzor, which they were forced to flee after a humiliating ISIL takeover in July.
Apparently intent on not repeating that experience, Nusra mobilised its forces to face the Jihad Army. The day after the initial ambush, Nusra, working with Ahrar Al Sham – another ultraconservative faction – overran several Jihad Army camps. “They have besieged them,” said a rebel commander. “They took Al Samdaniyeh, Al Hamidiyeh and Al Qahtaniyeh, and overran most of their headquarters there.”
In the skirmishes the Jihad Army’s leader, a Syrian militant from the Golan Heights known as Abu Musab Al Fannousi, was reported to have been captured and killed, seriously wounded, or shot in the shoulder.
A voice recording posted on Twitter on May 1 appeared to dispel rumours of his death, with Al Fannousi calling Nusra and the FSA “puppets of the infidel regimes”.
He accused them of following orders from foreign states to attack the Jihad Army who, he said, “wanted to rule by God’s laws”. The recording was being treated as authentic by moderate rebels.
Rebel breakaways
Details about the Jihad Army remain patchy. Information from rebel fighters indicates it was established in January by Al Fannousi and a militant called Abu Bashir, who defected from Nusra and took dozens of fighters with him. It quickly grew to a force of between 400 and 600 men, a moderate rebel commander said. Other rebels said it was smaller – between 200 and 300 fighters. Some of its members were drawn from other rebel groups, including Ahrar Al Sham, rebels said. One moderate fighter said he knew the group contained militants from Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
The emergence of ISIL on the southern front is something moderate commanders and their allies in western, Jordanian and Gulf intelligence agencies – all part of an anti-ISIL coalition fighting the group in Syria and Iraq since last year – have been trying to prevent.
Unlike parts of northern and eastern Syria where ISIL has become the dominant force, in the south moderates have retained more influence.
But those claims to moderation have been undermined by the rise of Nusra, which has stuck firmly to its Al Qaeda affiliation, and by what appears to be a shift by some moderate and conservative factions towards ISIL.
Adding to the fracturing battlefront in the south, two days after the April 27 ambush and with the fight against the Jihad Army still raging, clashes erupted in Quneitra between Nusra and the Yarmouk Martyrs’ Brigades.
The fighting broke out after the Brigades, a major faction affiliated to the MOC and separate from the Yarmouk Army, took control of a town called Sahm Al Golan in the west of Deraa province and overran a series of Nusra command posts.
Three Saudis fighting for Nusra were reported to be among the dead. Harakat Al Muthana, a powerful hardline faction, became embroiled in the fighting, manoeuvring to prevent Nusra from an operation on May 3 to kill or capture the commander of the Brigades – Mohammad “Abu Ali” Al Baridi, also known as Al Khal.
ISIL allegations
Tensions have simmered between Nusra and the Brigades since December 15, when Nusra assassinated Mousab Ali Qarfan, also known as Mousab Zaytouneh, a top Brigades commander, and three fighters.
Nusra accused him of being an ISIL sleeper agent and said the Brigades had been infiltrated by ISIL as part of a creeping expansion into southern Syria.
The Brigades denied the claims and recently issued a statement criticising Nusra’s affiliation with Al Qaeda.
But its credibility as a moderate force was further damaged in March when a video was posted on the internet showing its fighters and Al Khal singing a religious song in praise of ISIL.
The Syrian Observatory for Hu- man Rights reported the controversy started by that footage, and said eight members of the Brigades were later arrested in the town of Nawa and sentenced to six years in jail by the Islamic Justice Committee, a rebel court.
Revelations last month that ISIL had entered Yarmouk Camp, in southern Damascus, further fuelled speculation of links with the Brigade, which is in the camp.
A series of overlapping conflicts is now under way in the south, involving Nusra, the Jihad Army, the Brigades, the FSA and forces loyal to Mr Al Assad.
The Syria conflict is also a broader proxy war involving the US, Gulf states, Russia and Iran.
More than 200,000 people have been killed since 2011, according to the UN, with millions more fleeing their homes as refugees.