The Islamic Front, key rebel group in Syria, said in statement posted online on Monday that main rebel factions in Aleppo province have merged to fight under its banner.
According to the statement, the brigades of Ahrar al-Sham, Soqour al-Sham, the Kurdish Islamic Front and Islam of Army will fight under leadership of rebel commander Abdul Aziz Slamiya.
The Islamic Front has mobilized all efforts to face rapid advances made by Bashar Assad’s forces in the last four weeks in Aleppo.
Aleppo, once Syria’s commercial hub, has been divided since a July 2012 rebel offensive. Government aircraft have been targeting opposition-held areas there as well as nearby towns and villages.
Armed Islamist groups have become the most powerful force in the three-year-old uprising against Assad, who has long portrayed himself as the defender of a secular order in Syria as the death toll exceeded 171,000.
Translated and edited by The Syrian Observer
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