Syria rebel leader killed in suicide blast. -(On a high-level meeting)

The leader of one of Syria's most powerful rebel groups has been killed along with dozens of other commanders in a suicide attack on a high-level meeting in Idlib province.

Hassan Abboud, the head of the Ahrar al-Sham brigade, was among those killed on Tuesday at the meeting in of Ram Hamdan. Reports said the total death toll was 45 people.

Ahrar's 20,000 fighters are allied with the Islamic Front alliance, which was formed earlier this year to oppose the Islamic State group. 

The Idlib meeting brought together a number of the alliance's brigades, such as Ahrar, Abdallah Azzam and the Iman brigades, to discuss their strategy to fight the Islamic State.
Activists named others killed in the attack: Abu Yazan al-Shami, a member of the Ahrar's shura council, military field commanders Abu Talha al-Askari and Abu Yousuf Binnish, and Abu al-Zubeir, the head of the Iman brigade.

• It is not known who staged the attack but Islamic State (ISIS) sympathisers hailed the death of Abboud on social media.

Another of Ahrar's leaders, Abu Khaled al-Souri, a close associate with al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, was killed by the Islamic State earlier this year.
That assassination caused the schism that pitted the Islamic State group against other rebel factions in Syria.

• Ahrar advocates for a state run on Islamic principles, which protects the rights of women and religious and ethnic minorities, and disagrees with the approach of the Islamic State group.

• In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera in December 2013, Abboud said he would fight for his rights and dismissed talks in UN-brokered Geneva between the Syrian government and the exiled rebel umbrella Syrian National Coalition

"We see Geneva as a tool of manipulation - to derail the Syrian revolution away from its goals and objectives ... Whatever outcome the conference may yield, will be binding on the Syrian National Coalition only.
"For us, we will continue to fight for our revolution until we restore our rights."
However, the rise of the Islamic State after the Geneva talks gave the civil war a new dimension, with Ahrar fighting not only the government but other rebel groups.
 http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/09/syria-rebel-leader-killed-suicide-blast-201499181811320610.html
9/9/14