BEIRUT: Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt congratulated Syrian rebels Sunday for liberating the northwestern city of Idlib, which fell into the hands of Islamist groups including the Nusra Front Saturday night.
“My salutes to the rebels who liberated Idlib,” Jumblatt said in a message posted on his Twitter account, hours after the rebels announced the liberation of the city from regime forces.
A coalition of Islamist fighters seized full control of Idlib Saturday after five days of fighting in the city.
The grouping, known as the Army of Conquest, brings together jihadis from Nusra Front with Islamist allies including the powerful Ahrar al-Sham organization.
Jumblatt also commended the rebels for liberating Busra al-Sham, an ancient southern town in the Daraa district.
The Druze leader then denounced Druze figures in Syria who are siding with the regime in the current conflict.
“Shame on these suspicious calls by some religious clerics that ask the regime for arms to fight the Syrian people,” he said. “These [calls] are putting the Syrian Arab Druze at risk.”
Jumblatt had been criticized for his contention that the Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, was not a terrorist group because of its popular support in Syria.
The group had claimed responsibility for several suicide bombings on Shiite neighborhoods in Lebanon and participated in a number of attacks on the Lebanese Army.
Along with ISIS, Nusra Front still holds 25 Lebanese servicemen hostage in the outskirts of the northeastern town of Arsal.
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