‘Qaeda killed 48 Syrian soldiers in iraq’

Al-Qaeda's Iraqi front group claimed an attack on a convoy in west Iraq that killed 48 Syrian soldiers and nine Iraqi guards, in a statement posted on jihadist forums on Monday. The soldiers had entered Iraq for medical treatment and were being transported through the western province of Anbar on their way back to Syria when the attack took place on 4 March, according to the Iraqi defence ministry. Islamic State of Iraq fighters were able to destroy a column of ‘the Safavid army with its associated vehicles’ carrying ‘members of the Nusairi army and Syrian regime shabiha’ the statement said. Safavid is a word implying Shiites are under Iranian control, while Nusairi is a derogatory term for Alawites, the sect to which Syrian President Bashar al-Assad belongs, and shabiha is a name used for pro-regime militia forces.