Attempt to push back group that claimed responsibility for bomb attack on Shia suburb in Beirut
Al-Qaida's most significant and powerful affiliate in Iraq and Syria was under attack on multiple fronts on Saturday, even as the group claimed responsibility for its latest outrage – bombing a Shia suburb of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, two days ago.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – known by the acronym Isil – was facing an assault in the western Iraqi province of Anbar, led by police and tribal fighters, after attempting to seize the city of Falluja and the neighbouring town of Ramadi on Friday.
Across the border in Syria, the same group was facing a concerted push-back from an alliance of Islamist and other rebel factions in a series of apparently co-ordinated strikes – which some activists claimed on Saturday marked the start of a "second revolution", this time against al-Qaida. Among them was Ibrahim al-Idelbi, an activist with close ties to the rebels, who wrote on his Facebook page that the "revolution has returned to its true path".
The attempt to push back the group – which has attracted large numbers of foreign jihadis to its banner in both countries – comes amid growing resentment of its attempt to impose its harsh version of Islamic law. The combined attacks on Isil came as the group claimed responsibility for a bombing of a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital, which killed at least five people on Thursday – the latest in a wave of attacks in Lebanon in recent months as Syria's civil war has spilled into its smaller neighbour.
According to Syrian activists, dozens of Isil's fighters had been killed in the new fighting, which started on Friday. Some analysts suggested that Isil's kidnapping and killing of Hussein al-Suleiman, a doctor who was also a commander in the Ahrar al-Sham militia, had triggered the assault after pictures of his disfigured body were shown on social media.
Reports on social media and elsewhere described clashes at multiple locations, including in Idlib province, where an Isil-controlled prison was seized. Other reports, impossible to confirm, suggested Isil had been driven from its base close to a key border crossing with Turkey. One group of fighters battling Isil is the newly formed Mujahideen Army, an alliance of eight brigades led by a well known fighter with strong Gulf links.
In a statement accusing the al-Qaida affiliate of hijacking their struggle to topple President Bashar al-Assad, it said Isil was responsible for forced repopulation, illegal arrests and refusal to co-operate with the agreed sharia court system. It said Isil fighters were "undermining stability and security in liberated areas" through theft, kidnapping and imposing their own brand of Islam, and vowed to fight them until Isil was disbanded or driven out of Syria.
Fighters from the Islamic Front, made up of several Islamist brigades that have been close to Isil in the past, were also said to be in heavy clashes with the group in northern Aleppo province. The new conflict seems certain to complicate efforts to find a peaceful settlement to the Syrian crisis at a peace conference later this month.
Assad's main political opponents in exile, the National Coalition, sought to portray Saturday's clashes as a counter assault by the Free Syrian Army against Isil's "authoritarian oppression".
"The Syrian people clearly have rejected al-Qaida's attempts to establish a presence in the liberated territories," coalition member Monzer Akbik said. "The solution to fighting extremism in Syria is to strengthen the Free Syrian Army at this critical juncture."
The battles in Syria came as Iraqi police and tribal fighters claimed to have retaken the western city of Falluja from al-Qaida-affiliated fighters after heavy clashes that have left scores of dead there and in the neighbouring city of Ramadi in recent days.
Amid reports of civilians fleeing fighting elsewhere in Anbar and Ninevah provinces, social media in the country described continuing serious violence in western Iraq between Sunni Islamist militants and the government forces of the country's Shia-dominated government.
The sudden escalation of violence broke out early last week after a government clampdown on a sit-in camp in Ramadi demanding more civil rights for the country's Sunni minority.
Falluja has been held since Monday by militants from Isil in the most serious challenge yet to the authority of his Shia-led government in Anbar province.
According to a local journalist working for CNN in Falluja, tribal forces and police were once again in control of a city where US forces and militants fought one of the bloodiest battles of the Iraq war a day.
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