A new
terrorist formation, Hayat Tahrir ash-Sham, consists of 25,000
militants, with Jabhat al-Nusra jihadists at its core, the
intelligence chief of Russia’s General Staff said. He also spoke of
the terrorists’ favorite tactics, state-of-the-art equipment and
ways of getting profit.
“Currently,
more than 70 gangs, including those from the ranks of the opposition,
which used to consider themselves ‘moderate,’ have banded
together. The total strength of the Hayat Tahrir ash-Sham group
exceeds 25,000 militants,” Col. Gen. Igor Korobov, the head of
the Main Directorate of the Russian General Staff (the foreign
military intelligence agency), said during a roundtable on Friday as
part of the Army-2017 international military-technical forum, held in
the Moscow Region.
The key role
in the formation belongs to Jabhat al-Nura (Nusra Front), which is
“engaged in active hostilities against the Syrian government
forces and moderate opposition in the provinces of Aleppo, Damascus,
Idlib and Hama,” he added.
Jabhat
al-Nura currently “includes more than 15,000 militants, most of
whom are Syrians," the military intelligence chief said.
As for
Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), the group’s numbers exceed
9,000 militants, according to the General Staff estimates.
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report:
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