Commander of Army of Islam, Zahran Alloush, a Syrian militant, was born 1970, in Damascus, Syria. As a Sunni Islamist leader, Alloush is considered as one of the most powerful persons in rebel-held Syria. Alloush is the son of prominent Saudi based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammad Alloush. He studied in Damascus and was awarded the BA degree in law and then completed his studies at the Islamic University in Medina. He had been known for his missionary activities since 1987, which prompted the Syrian regime to detain him in 2009 on charges of possessing weapons that the security forces found in his car. Army of Islam After he was released in mid-2011, Alloush worked to establish a military force to fight Syrian President Bashar Al Assad. In 2013, he formed the Brigade of Islam and then expanded to become the Army of Islam (Jaysh Al Islam), which included more than 45 Islamist factions that emerged after growing alarmed at the rise if Al Qaeda and the Islamic State in Syria. The Army of Islam, currently a major component of the Islamic Front, claimed its responsibility for carrying out several military operations against Assad since the launch of Syrian revolution in March 2011, the most significant was in July 2012 when the group killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha and other Syrian officials in Damascus. The group operates in the embattled Syrian city of Damascus and their ongoing battle against Assad is reportedly funded by Saudi Arabia. The Arab kingdom has sent millions of dollars to arm and train their fighters so they can defeat the Syrian regime and 'increasingly powerful Jihadi organizations', according to the Guardian. Alloush paid numerous visits to Saudi Arabia that indicate the oil-exporter country's increasing efforts to co-ordinate Syria's fragmented Syrian opposition groups to counter IS group and the Iranian-backed Assad government.
