organization:victory army

Nusra deflects blame for protest suppression ; ‘mandate flag… sows division’
▻http://syriadirect.org/news/nusra-deflects-blame-for-protest-suppression-%E2%80%98mandate-flag%E2%8

There were two kinds of flags carried at the protest, said a second protester who requested anonymity. “The first, and the most widespread, was a white flag with the words ‘No God but God, Mohamed is the Prophet of God,’” and the second was the mandate flag.

When some protesters insisted on raising the disputed flag anyway, masked men began beating people and confiscating cameras, said the same protester.

“They pulled one young guy into a café across from the clock tower square and started beating him until other protesters were able to pull him out,” he said.

The masked men arrested 10 protesters and smashed five cameras and three camera phones throughout the dispersal, three protesters told Syria Direct.

Once the mandate flags were gathered up and confiscated the men replaced them with black Jabhat al-Nusra flags, said the eyewitnesses.

Despite the security personnel driving Victory Army vehicles, the men who dispersed the protest were acting specifically on behalf of Jabhat al-Nusra and Jund al-Aqsa, an official with Ahrar a-Sham, one of the largest fighting groups within the rebel coalition, told Syria Direct on Tuesday.

(L’article nous dit en passant qu’il y avait deux genres de drapeaux dans la manif ; curieusement les vidéos Youtube qui ont fait le tour du Web ne montraient jamais celui avec la chahada – “the most widespread”.)

Assad Has It His Way in Syria| Foreign Affairs
▻https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/syria/2016-01-19/assad-has-it-his-way

But Assad’s greatest advantage—a fragmented opposition divided into more than 1,000 constantly feuding militias—seems to be back. Recently, over 20 rebel militia leaders have been assassinated, most by a breakaway faction of the Victory Army. The militias that the United States trained and armed at great expense have been crushed, not by Assad but by other rebels.

Rebels back off Shiite villages in exchange for Zabadani ceasefire - Syria Direct
▻http://syriadirect.org/news/rebels-back-off-shiite-villages-in-exchange-for-zabadani-ceasefire

Temporary ceasefires began in three Syrian towns on Wednesday as part of a deal brokered between Ahrar a-Sham rebels representing the Victory Army and an Iranian delegation negotiating on behalf of the regime as Assad supporters called for more decisive government action against rebellious areas nationwide.

The terms of the 48-hour ceasefires stipulate that the Syrian regime and its allies halt the assault they launched last month on Zabadani, northwest of Damascus and considered the entryway into the Qalamoun mountains along the Lebanese border, pro-opposition Orient News reported on Wednesday.

At the same time, Ahrar a-Sham rebels would pause their offensive on the regime-held Shiite villages of al-Fuaa and neighboring Kafariya in Idlib province, the site reported.

Ahrar a-Sham began attacking al-Fuaa in Idlib earlier this week after negotiations in Istanbul for a ceasefire in Zabadani broke down as a result of what rebel participants in the talks called Iranian intransigence.

While neither the Syrian regime nor Victory Army rebels issued official announcements confirming the ceasefires on Wednesday, aligned media sources and individual actors on both sides reported on a deal after days fierce fighting in both Zabadani and around al-Fuaa.