Rebels in the south are said to be planning a spring offensive on Damascus. They have reportedly established a coalition of 47 groups and set up lines of communication between fighters in Damascus and Quneitra provinces, but regime forces are redeploying in Quneitra from Damascus. Regime, NDF, and Hezbollah forces battled the Al Nusrah Front, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham, and Islamic battalions around Yabroud in Reef Dimashq. Al Nusrah targeted regime military buses in Deraa. ISIS executed three men in Raqqah accused of targeting the group and detained more than 20 civilians. Regime forces reportedly seized a lawyer and a daughter of an imprisoned human rights activist. A German ISIS commander was killed while fighting against Islamic battalions and rebels. Jund al-Islam commander Faisal Dawood Okla, who had escaped from Lebanon’s Roumiyeh prison in October 2012, was killed by regime forces in Homs yesterday.
