Blast Decimates Leadership of Syrian Rebel Group
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Version 0 of 1. BEIRUT — An explosion tore through a secret meeting of one of Syria’s strongest and most enduring rebel groups on Tuesday, killing a dozen of its top leaders, including its head, and striking another blow against the forces seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad. The blast hit a basement where the leaders of the group, Ahrar al-Sham, had collected to plot strategy, according to antigovernment activists. It remained unclear who had carried out the attack, which reportedly killed dozens of people and occurred in Idlib Province in Syria’s north. The explosion added to the troubles facing Syria’s rebels, who have lost ground in the country’s civil war in recent months to Mr. Assad’s military while also being overshadowed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the jihadist group that has seized territory on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border. After three years of declining to intervene in Syria’s civil war, President Obama began airstrikes against ISIS positions in Iraq last month and is working to form an international coalition to battle the group, which calls itself the Islamic State. Mr. Obama is scheduled to outline his anti-ISIS strategy in a speech on Wednesday. Ahrar al-Sham emerged early in the uprising against Mr. Assad and evolved into a major military force among Syria’s hundreds of rebel groups. Most powerful in the northern provinces near the Turkish border, Ahrar al-Sham has followed an ultraconservative Islamist ideology that has often made it a bridge between more mainline rebels and the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. While its leaders have said they would like to see Syria become an Islamic state, they have never publicly endorsed an international jihadist agenda, instead keeping their focus on toppling Mr. Assad. Ahrar al-Sham also joined with other rebels to battle ISIS in parts of northern Syria. Among those killed on Tuesday was the group’s leader, Hassan Abboud. Less accessible than other rebel leaders, Mr. Abboud was widely reported to have been detained by Mr. Assad’s government for Islamist activism before the uprising and released after it started. Mr. Abboud was also close to the man sent by Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s international leader, to work with Syria’s rebels. When that envoy, known as Abu Khalid al-Suri, was killed this year, Mr. Abboud mourned him publicly. Tuesday’s attack killed so many of Ahrar al-Sham’s leaders that some analysts suggested that the group might cease to exist. Others raised the possibility that many of its thousands of experienced fighters would trickle away to other groups. Efforts by Ahrar al-Sham’s leaders to appear more moderate in recent months caused friction with some of its hard-line fighters, said Noah Bonsey, a Syria analyst with the International Crisis Group. Some of those fighters could join the Nusra Front or be wooed by ISIS’ military successes and relative wealth. The question, he said, is, “Will Ahrar al-Sham be able to maintain its fighters or will they go to other rebel groups?” |