A new resistance group has emerged in Syria, pledging to stage “surprise” strikes against the Israeli forces occupying the country as well as the “terrorist gangs” of the country’s self-proclaimed “president” Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.
The Islamic Resistance Front in Syria (IRFS) passed the remarks in a statement on Friday, noting that it had already staged one such strike against Israeli troops in the province of Quneitra in the country’s extreme southwest in late January.
The operation, it said, served to mark the start of its retaliation "against the Israeli enemy alongside our operations against the terrorist gangs of Jolani," it stated.
The development verified the predictions that have been made by many regional officials and resistance figures concerning imminent emergence of resistance fighters in the Arab country.
The group surfaces less than two months following Syria’s takeover by the foreign-backed militants of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, who overran the country’s entire expanse amid intense Israeli airstrikes throughout the Syrian territory. Tel Aviv has ramped up its deadly aggression against the country under the pretext of preventing spillover of violence into the occupied Palestinian territories.
The HTS used to occupy some areas in northern Syria after being pushed back by Damascus and its allies following the outbreak of Western- and Israeli-backed militancy in the country in 2011.
Despite the heavy toll on Syria’s civilian and military infrastructures from the attacks, Jolani stated in December that he did not seek any conflict with Tel Aviv.
HTS’ former commander, who claimed Syria’s “presidency” late last month, is now expected to form an interim “legislative body” until a new “constitution” was approved, Ghani said.
At the onset of his contribution to regional violence, he functioned as a Daesh commander in Iraq’s Nineveh and Mosul Provinces before being handpicked by Daesh’s former ringleader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2012 to establish a Syrian affiliate in the beginning of the foreign-backed militancy against the government of Syria’s former president Bashar al-Assad.
Elsewhere in its Friday statement, the new Syrian resistance faction described the circumstances surrounding its January 31 anti-Israeli strike, saying the operation forced Israeli troops to "retreat and withdraw."
"[We will not allow the Israeli regime] to occupy our land, and we will be on the lookout for you and the Jolani gangs with our precise ambushes and surprise attacks," it noted.
Also on Friday, Israeli Army Radio reported that armed men had opened fire on Israeli occupation forces in the Quneitra countryside, claiming the incident did not cause any casualties.
Israeli correspondent Doron Kadosh described the development as a "particularly unusual incident," marking the first time in two months that armed men had reached "the area of operation of our forces and opened fire on them."
"A group calling itself the Islamic Resistance Front in Syria claimed responsibility for firing at our forces...and it is too early to know whether this is the beginning of organized armed resistance” to Israeli activity in Syria, he said.
The IRFS is reportedly largely made up of Syria's Shia Muslims, and previously used to call itself the “Southern Liberation Front.”
According to a statement, the group was established to “protect the Syrian people and push Israel out of Syrian territory.”