Scores of Syrian fighters killed in army ambush near Damascus

[Capt. Obvious]

Source: Reuters

Scores of Islamist fighters were killed in an army ambush in the Eastern Ghouta area of the Syrian capital Damascus, the national news agency SANA said on Wednesday.

Lebanon's Al Manar television said the attack was near the town of Otaiba and that the death toll may have been higher than 170.

....

The Britain-based Observatory, which has a network of sources across Syria, said fighters from the Shi'ite group Hezbollah carried out the ambush in cooperation with Syrian government forces.

....

Hezbollah has sent fighters to support the Syrian leader, whose Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. Sunni militants from Lebanon, Iraq and other countries have also entered Syria to fight on behalf of the largely Sunni rebellion.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/26/us-syria-crisis-ambush-idUSBREA1P0TP20140226

[cosmicone]

1. Nice

Assad will be winning soon.

[pampango]

2. Good news given that al Nusra fighters were killed. Emblematic of the Syrian conflict that

it is one group of foreign fighters, Hezbollah, ambushed another group of foreign fighters, as Nusra.

Syrian forces 'kill many rebels' in Eastern Ghouta

Syrian government forces have ambushed and killed a large number of Islamist rebel fighters in the eastern outskirts of the capital Damascus, reports say.

Syrian state media says 175 died.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says it has received reports that at least 70 died in the fighting in the Eastern Ghouta region.

The area is a rebel stronghold where Syrian forces are believed to have carried out a chemical weapons attack last year.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26356464

[Lasher]

3. I keep hauling out this graphic, trying to keep up with who's who.

http://www.businessinsider.com/graphic-the-most-accurate-breakdown-of-the-syrian-rebels-2013-9

Jabhat al-Nusra is accounted for in the first column but I don't know if it's still accurate to lump them in with ISIS, if it ever was.

So now we have pro-Assad Hezbollah fighters who ambush rebel al-Nusra Front fighters. But al-Nusra is not as much anti-Assad as they are al Qaeda supporters who want to carve an Islamic state from parts of Syria and Iraq. Right?

[url=http://www.cosgan.de/smilie.php][img][/img][/url]

[penultimate]

4. Crazy mess....

I don't think the FSA stands much of a chance in the long run.