Liwa al-Aqsa
The Liwa al-Aqsa or al-Aqsa Brigade is a militia belonging to the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group .
On February 22, 2017, over 2,000 members of the militia left the province of Idlib to join the IS fighters in ar-Raqqa . Before that they executed 90 fighters from the Free Syrian Army and other rebel groups they were holding in captivity.
The militia was previously allied with the al-Nusra Front and the IS, at that time it was called "Jund al-Aqsa" ( Arabic جند الأقصى, DMG Jund al-'Aqṣā ) and was a collection of extremist rebel groups that were mainly against what they saw as "moderate" rebel groups such as the Ahrar al-Sham , Suqur asch-Scham, Faylaq asch-Scham, Tahrir asch-Scham, the Nour al-Din al-Zenki movement and all groups within the Free Syrian Army fought.
Liwa al-Aqsa announced his dissolution of al-Nusra when it was restructured in Jabhat Fatah al-Sham .
The United States Department of State has classified the militia as Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) and Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) since September 2016 . It was a terrorist association and assigned to the list of organizations designated by the United States Department of State as terrorist abroad set. The authorities hold the militia responsible for numerous suicide attacks and massacres, including one in the village of Maan in Hama Province , where the militia is believed to have arbitrarily executed 40 of the villagers. The Turkey , United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia lead them as such. Germany , Jordan , France , Iraq , Italy and Qatar also classified them as terrorist at the beginning of 2017.
Little is known about the leadership of the militia. One of the last known emirs is Abu Thar al-Najdi I-Harthy, a Saudi Arabian citizen. It was founded by Muhammed Yusuf Uthman Abd al Salam (battle name: Abu Abdulaziz al-Qatari), a Jordanian with Palestinian roots. This was by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was commissioned in Syria to set up terrorist cells. Al-Qatari passed away in 2014, and his two sons and a Saudi citizen by the name of Abu Dharr al Jazrawi have since played a leading role.
Individual evidence
- ↑ syriadirect.org:Relatives of executed rebels speak out: 'The regime hasn't even done what Liwa al-Aqsa did to us '
- ↑ almasdarnews.com: 2000 Radical Rebels following ISIS
- ↑ huffingtonpost.co.uk:Why Did Jund Al-Aqsa Join Nusra Front in Taking Out 'Moderate' Rebels in Idlib? Huffington Post January 5, 2015
- ↑ US State Department: Terrorist Designation of Jund al-Aqsa ( Memento from February 20, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ reuters.com:US sanctions jihadist Syrian rebel group Jund al-Aqsa
- ↑ reuters.com:Syrian terrorist list produces 163 names and no agreement
- ↑ Home Office of Government UK: PROSCRIBED TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS
- ↑ reuters.com : List of Armed Groups in Syria
- ↑ Zawya.com: Story of Aqsa
- ↑ awsaat.com:Jund al-Aqsa ', Remarkable Case on Radical Field in Syria ( Memento from December 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive )