Liwa al-Islam

Liwa al-Islam was founded in 2011 by Zahran Alloush after he was released from an Assad Regime prison where he had been held for his Salafi activism. The opposition group is most known for a Damascus bombing that killed both the Assad Regime’s Deputy Defense Minister and Assistant Vice President, as well as for its frequent cooperation with Former Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (Fatah al-Sham), formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra. Liwa al-Islam was initially a member of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and joined the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front (SILF) umbrella organization in 2012. However the group began to distance itself from the FSA in 2013 when it joined the Islamic Coalition, a political group that called for the implementation of Shariah law in Syria, and for the opposition to the Assad Regime to be run only by groups fighting inside Syria. On September 29, 2013, Saudi Arabia facilitated a merger of about fifty Damascus-based opposition groups, including Liwa al-Islam, to create a new opposition group known as Jaysh al-Islam. Liwa al-Islam became one of the largest brigades within Jaysh al-Islam, and is prominent within the Ghouta agricultural belt in the Damascus governorate.