Zahran Alloush, the commander of Jaish al-Islam, (Army of Islam,) one of the most powerful Syrian rebel groups, was killed in a Russian Christmas Day strike in a suburb of Damascus, both pro-government and opposition media reported.
His death, alongside five other fighters, will pose a significant challenge to the armed opposition to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad as a rare diplomatic initiative seems to be gaining steam.
Just before breaking for the holiday, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution proposing a peace process to end Syria’s civil war, now in its fifth year. The UN estimates that over a quarter of a million people have been killed in the grinding multi-party war, but Syrian Observatory For Human Rights, a London-based group, puts the number at double that.
The UN proposal sets down guidelines for talks between Assad’s government and the Syrian opposition that take place in Geneva.
Alloush’s Army of Islam had agreed to participate in the talks, which aim at a timeline for elections in Syria.
Assad and Russia, his most powerful ally, view Alloush’s group as terrorists on par with the Islamic State.
Observers said the attack on Alloush was part and parcel of a Russian policy aimed at eliminating movements claiming to occupy the middle ground between Assad and the Islamic State, in order to bolster Assad’s position vis-à-vis the Western governments that loathe him, but are being pushed by the terror attacks in Europe and the United States into rapid action against ISIS.