Army of Islam

On September 29, 2013 forty-three Islamist rebel battalions pledged alliance to Liwa al-Islam commander Sheikh Zahran Abdullah Alloush (or Alwash) and joined forces to create the Army of Islam (Jaish Al Islam).

The Liwa al-Islam YouTube channel broadcast video of the swearing-in ceremony. The meeting was held in some huge industrial hall with some 100 delegates present. The Army of Islam banner follows the design of the Liwa al Islam banner. The coalition shares its name with a Gaza-based US-designated terrorist organization.


 * بيان تشكيل جيش الاسلام (Statement of the formation of the Army of Islam) 4m13s x 2
 * 43فصيل عسكري يقدمون البيعة للقائد الشيخ زهران علوش قائدا لجيش الاسلام (providing military faction allegiance to the leader Sheikh Zahran Alwash commander of the Army of Islam) 13m23s x 2
 * كلمة أهل الحل والعقد في تشكيل جيش الإسلام (Word of the people of the solution and the contract in the formation of the Army of Islam) 17m18s x 2

On November 22, 2013, the Army of Islam merged with a number of other relevant fighting groups and formed the Islamic Front with Zahran Alloush as its "Military Commander".

10.11.2015 Zahran Alloush is reported killed; video appears to show the funeral (25.12.2015: video is no longer available; no definite information on the November incident, either)

Liwa al-Islam
Zahran Alloush was the son of an exiled Salafi preacher living in Saudi Arabia, jailed for his own "salafist activisties," reports Syria Deeply, but was released in 2011, after which he quietly formed a militant group late in the year. This he named Liwa al-Islam (flag / Brigade / district of Islam) (note: Syria Deeply says brigade, but Liwa equates to the Turkish Sanjak (wp) for flag, also meaning "district").

Zahran's close relative Mohammed Alloush studied marketing in Saudi Arabia, and then Islamic banking in Lebanon, "but he dropped out before completion, joining Jaish Al Islam," apparently in 2012, when they started receiving Saudi Arabian funding, Gulf News reports. "(Mohammed) was the founder of underground cells in Douma, 10-km northeast of Damascus, and rose in rank quickly to become a member of Jaish Al Islam’s Political Bureau." (In March, 2016, Mohammed would be selected, at Saudi insistence, as the chief negotiator for the estern-and-Saudi-backed High Negotiating Commiittee heading what's supposed to be peace talks with the Syrian government.)

The first major public actions of Liwa al-Islam were in July 2012, with bomb assassination of top military officials in Damascus. They continued to grow in power over the next year before their merger into Jaish al-Islam in September, 2013.

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SyrianGirl on Facebook:
 * ''Syria: More than 40 insurgent groups the most significant of which being Liwa Al islam in Syria merge to form "Islamic Army". This came after 13 militant groups including many core "FSA" joined with Jabhat al Nusra to rejected the SNC "Syrian National Coalition" puppet regime in Turkey and formed an "Islamic unity under Sharia law" a day ago. US puppet regime has virtually lost all influence over the insurgency.