Syrian opposition leader Zahran Alloush, the head of Jaysh al-Islam (Army of Islam), gave a speech to fellow Sunni salafist jihadists in which he announced his group’s staunch opposition to the Islamic State terror organization that is currently taking over large swaths of territory in both Iraq and Syria.
The rebel leader was filmed next to a Hello Kitty notebook that was on the table behind which he was speaking. Hello Kitty is a fictional female white Japanese bobtail cat whose consumers are largely pre-adolescent females.
“They are dirty bastards, with an evil ideology,” said Alloush, speaking of the Islamic State fighters formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). They are trying to “destroy Jihad” in Afghanistan, in Chechnya, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in Iraq, and in Syria, said the rebel Sheikh.
Alloush called the Islamic State “khawarij,” or “those who went out,” describing Muslims who reject their true leadership.
Alloush’s Jaysh al-Islam (Army of Islam) is part of a Syrian rebel conglomerate known as the Islamic Front. Jaysh al-Islam has an estimated force of 25,000, and it is most powerful in the suburbs surrounding Damascus, Syria’s capital city.
Some have suggested that Saudi Arabia is responsible for arming and training the militants who fight under the banner of Jaysh al-Islam. The Saudi Kingdom reportedly spent millions of dollars to help Alloush’s group overthrow the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The Islamist rebel group is said to have tanks, heavily armored vehicles, and sophisticated weaponry in its possession.
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