The Islamic State published a new video (16 minutes long) entitled “God will Bless them” showing its actions against the New Syrian Army which according to the Islamic State works under Washington’s orders. The Islamic State forces described the New Syrian Army fighters as “crusaders’ shoes” and the “hired lowly hands of the Jordanian regime.”
In the video, the Islamic State forces recounted their perspective of the New Syrian Army’s history mentioning a series of failures and defeats. The historical narrative was backed with images from the Islamic State’s archive one of a box of ammunition left behind by the New Syrian Army and another showing the decapitated head of a New Syrian Army fighter.
The Islamic State’s main aim from the publication is to declare it has caught prominent New Syrian Army “eyes and spies.” Here the Islamic State forces present a series of images of its forces killing prisoners, from the New Syrian Army, wearing the infamous orange jumpsuits. In keeping with its violent filming and production style, the video shows the killings in great detail. The Islamic State forces’ brutality does not stop at these vivid images but continues to show an image of these men’s decapitated heads planted on spikes.
The Islamic State forces continue in the video describing the “media defeat” of the New Syrian Army, as the forces published part of the militia’s massive archive of information. The archive supposedly includes audio-visual material, audial material, texts, and private messages. And the Islamic State forces stressed that what they have released so far is but a fraction of the material they obtained.
The voiceover then recounts the names of those accused of being New Syrian Army spies. The names are followed by the men’s “confessions” in the Islamic State’s familiar style. Hatem al-Fadel appears introducing himself as a resident of al-Baqaan and a fighter in the Revolutionary Commandos. Bashar al-Fadel followed him speaking about the support the faction received from the Jordanian Army and the food and money the Americans supplied them with for the faction to fight the Islamic State. Abdu Ahmad Hindi and Ahmad Ali al-Murshid appear after them in the video. The video continues with the execution of these men, and the voiceover comments, “They were killed with their own weapons which were provided to them by the crusader masters.”
In the video, the Islamic State forces mentioned that when its fighters launched attacks on the New Syrian Army bases in al-Tanf, they killed three British military personnel and “tens of apostates.” The statement was followed by a quick shot of seven of the Islamic State fighters who died while participating in the attack.
The New Syrian Army took the area of al-Tanf, al-Rakban Camp, and al-Hamad desert as bases. The voiceover in video commented that “the opposing media portrays the place as a camp to welcome refugees, but in reality, it is the opposite of that.” The reality in the Islamic State’s dictionary is the words of its Egyptian leader Abu Saeed al-Muhajir who appears in the video wearing a black uniform against a black background.
“Al-Rakban Camp as is known, is not like the other camps, it is a reception point for those wishing to join the New Syrian Army and others from the apostate Sahawat,” says Abu Saeed in the video. He continues taking responsibility for the several car bomb attacks the forces committed against the camp.
The publication comes at a time the regime forces, supported by the auxiliary sectarian militias, are advancing towards al-Tanf to regain control of the area. The Islamic State forces indicated this approaching danger indirectly, claiming that “the Nusayris (Alawites) and Sahawat” had an agreement “a honeymoon of cooperation, coordination and joint defense in eastern al-Qalamoun and the areas surrounding al-Dumayr.” According to the Islamic State, “the situation turned into its opposite due to the Nusayris wild desire to control the Badiya.” The video continued that this is what led to the American intervention and their bombardment of the regime and auxiliary militias convoys several times.
The video concludes with the phrase, “By God’s grace, this area has become a battlefield for the crusader alliance and its agents and the Russian al-Rafidi [reference to Shiites] alliance and its allies, and it will be a swamp without an exit for them God willing
