Top rebel’s death in Syria reshuffles deck ahead of talks

BEIRUT – The assassination of a top Syrian rebel commander who led one of the most powerful groups battling President Bashar Assad’s forces has dealt a significant setback to the opposition that could reshuffle the lineup of key players on the ground ahead of the planned peace talks in Geneva next month.

On Saturday, the Army of Islam and allied militant groups in Syria mourned the killing of Zahran Allouch, while government supporters and the Islamic State group cheered his death – a reflection of his role in fighting both sides in the Syrian civil war.

Allouch was killed in airstrikes that targeted the group’s headquarters during a meeting on Friday. He was instantly killed along with a number of senior commanders of his Army of Islam group and those of the ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham and the Faylaq al-Rahman groups.

The Syrian army claimed responsibility for the airstrike that killed Allouch, although many among the opposition blamed Russia, which has been bombing IS targets and other insurgent groups since late September.

Allouch was a controversial figure in the war and an authoritative rebel leader who commanded thousands of fighters on the doorstep of Damascus, the seat of Assad’s power. His death may have contributed – at least partially – to a delay in an agreed-on pullout of thousands of militants and their families from neighborhoods on the southern edge of Damascus.

The pullout, supposed to start on Saturday, was to involve mainly militants from the Islamic State group who earlier this year overran the Yarmouk area, which is home to a Palestinian refugee camp and has been hotly contested and fought over in the war, and two adjacent neighborhoods.