The Commander of Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis has said his rebel group was defeated by the Islamic State (ISIS) in Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus due to the complicity of Al-Qaeda's Syria wing, the Nusra Front, and the weakness of allied groups.
In special statement to Zaman al-Wasl, Abu Ahmed Mushir said ISIS launched a surprise attack on the refugee camp with complicity of both Nusra Front and the Syrian regime. "We were not capable of resisting such a counter attack for a long time," he added.
Mushir accused Syrian regime forces of facilitating the movement of ISIS from the neighboring district of al-Hajer al-Aswad to Yarmouk camp.
ISIS took control of around 90 percent of Yarmouk camp on Saturday, where 18,000 civilians have suffered from years of bombing, army siege and militia control.
Yarmouk was home to half a million Palestinians prior to the beginning of the Syrian conflict in 2011. The war has killed 220,000 people and displaced millions of Syrians.
The militant Islamist group's offensive in Yarmouk gives it a major presence in the capital. ISIS, currently the most powerful insurgent group in Syria, is now only a few kilometers from Bashar al-Assad's seat of power.
