Nineteen Syrian armed opposition factions on March 10 announced that they had assembled under an umbrella group named ‘Al-Sham Legion’. In a video posted on their official Facebook account, the group said it was made of 19 armed factions actively fighting against forces loyal to President Bashar Assad in the suburbs of Aleppo, Idlib, Homs, Hama and Damascus. The new organization, which pledged to take back the regime-held areas in these cities, seems to indicate a recent trend within the Syrian opposition to unite.
On February 25, Syria’s three main armed opposition groups announced the establishment of a “joint operations base” in Aleppo, the country’s largest city. The Islamic Front, Mujahideen Army and al-Nusra Front agreed to fight together “against Assad’s army and sectarian militias,” the groups said via the Islamic Front’s Twitter account. Syria’s civil war, which enters its third year in March, has killed over 100,000 people and forced 2.5 million out of their country, according to the UN.