BEIRUT — One month before peace talks are scheduled to begin between the Syrian government and opposition rebel groups, a Syrian airstrike killed a top rebel commander in the outskirts Damascus, according to activist groups and the Syrian government.
Zahran Allouch, the founder of the Saudi-backed Army of Islam rebel faction, was killed Friday by an airstrike on a meeting of rebel commanders near the Damascus suburb of Otaya, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Observatory said it was unclear in the immediate aftermath whether the airstrike was launched by Syrian or Russian warplanes. But the Syrian military later claimed responsibility in a statement published by the state-run SANA news agency.
The report said that the strike was carried out after a series of aerial reconnaissance operations against groupings of "terrorist" organizations and their headquarters in the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta. In addition to Allouch, it said the airstrike killed "a large number of commanders of Ahrar al-Sham and Faylaq al-Rahman," other rebel factions who are often allied with Alloush's Army of Islam.
Alloush's death is a blow to insurgents fighting to topple President Bashar Assad and a boost to government forces who have been bolstered by the Russian military intervention in Syria in the past few months. Syrian government forces have been on the offensive in several parts of the country since Russia began its military campaign in late September to shore up Assad's forces.
It was not immediately clear how Allouch's killing would affect his group, which is entrenched in the eastern suburbs of Damascus. Several rebel group commanders have been killed in the past — including most of the command of the ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham group in a mysterious bombing in northern Syria last year.
Allouch, who was in his mid-40s, was widely known to be supported by Saudi Arabia and Turkey. He was one of the most powerful rebel commanders with thousands of fighters controlling large parts of the eastern Damascus suburbs of Eastern Ghouta and Douma. In addition to fighting government forces, the Army of Islam faction fought pitched battles against its rival, ISIS, near Damascus.
