According to the New York Times, videos posted online suggest “cooperation” between al Qaeda’s Al Nusrah Front, Ahrar al Sham, and a Free Syrian Army brigade in an assault on Malula earlier this week. Separately, Ahrar al Sham condemned the prospect of Western intervention in Syria.
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The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant announced that it would coordinate with other Syrian rebel groups, including the Free Syrian Army, to take revenge for a chemical weapons attack last week in the capital that is said to have killed more than 300 people.
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In one attack in Idlib, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria claimed that “2,000 fully-equipped mujahideen” from eight different “brigades” fielded “8 tanks, a BMP armored vehicle,” and an assortment of mortars, rockets, machine guns, and other heavy weapons to overrun Syrian military forces. Free Syrian Army units participated in the attack.
The Ahfad al Rasoul Brigade said that it would join al Qaeda’s affiliates and fight a Kurdish militia. It is funded by Qatar and is represented on the US-backed Supreme Military Command.
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Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria teamed up with the jihadist Ahrar al Sham Brigade to take control of the provincial capital. The jihadist alliance effectively controls most the Euphrates River Valley in Syria all the way to the Iraqi border. The Al Nusrah Front also carried out two suicide attacks in Homs.
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A fighter from the Ahrar al Sham, a jihadist group in Syria, is heard saying on a video that the aircraft at the overrun al-Jarrah airbase “are now in the hands” of the group. The Al Nusrah Front also participated in the assault.
A jihadist alliance made up of the Al Nusrah Front, Ahrar al Sham, and the Islamic Vanguard seized control of the Taftanaz air base in Idlib.
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The al Qaeda-linked group claimed it carried out joint operations with the Ahrar al Sham Brigades and Suqur al Sham. Al Nusrah has now claimed credit for 34 of the 42 suicide attacks that have been recorded in Syria since December 2011.
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