**The Islamic Front is an independent military and social force that is aimed at bringing down Assad’s regime in Syria and at replacing it with a just Islamic state,” the groups said in a statement, published on Friday. The factions joining the merger are Aleppo’s biggest fighting force Liwa al-Tawhid, the Salafist Ahrar al-Sham, the Idlib-based Soqour al-Sham, the Homs-based al-Haq Brigades, Ansar al-Sham, and the Damascus-based Army of Islam. The Kurdish Islamic Front also joined the front. These names “will disappear and the groups will now melt into the new merger”, a member of Liwa al-Tawhid told Al Jazeera, adding his group would be dissolved. “There will be no such thing as Liwa al-Tawhid.” Amad Essa al-Sheikh, the head of the Consultative Council of the new Islamic Front, told Al Jazeera the goal of integrating the factions was to bring about “a paradigm shift in the armed rebellion by closing ranks and mobilising them to become the real alternative to the dying regime”. Al-Sheikh said the Front would cooperate with all “loyal fighters” in Syria and that it would work with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) . The FSA, set up with the backing of Western and regional powers in an attempt to unite the different armed groups and isolate what were seen as extremist elements, is the military arm of the Syrian National Coalition, the country’s main political opposition bloc. The SNC has been heavily criticised by activists and rebels inside Syria, who saw it as implementing a western agenda and accused it of being out of touch with the people on the ground. Ahmad Musa, a member the Islamic Front’s political bureau, told Al Jazeera he hoped the SNC would welcome the announcement of the new front and would cooperate with “what the Syrian people want”. “They want a revolution and not politics and foreign agendas,” he told Al Jazeera.**
Posted on: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 21:01:52 +0000
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