Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Syria's Moderate Rebels Still Losing Ground To Extremists

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Syria's Moderate Rebels Still Losing Ground To Extremists

    SYRIA'S MODERATE REBELS STILL LOSING GROUND TO EXTREMISTS

    Al-Monitor
    April 4 2014

    Author: Antoun Issa
    Posted April 4, 2014

    Fear of armed Islamist groups in Syria has been a major sticking point
    between the United States and its regional allies in determining the
    quality of arms supplied to Syrian rebels. It was again high on the
    agenda on March 28 when US President Barack Obama touched down in
    Riyadh for a brief visit.

    According to the Washington Post, Obama was considering backing down
    from his stern opposition to arming rebels with more advanced weaponry,
    including anti-aircraft missiles, or MANPADs. The Saudis have long
    pressed Western powers to arm rebel factions fighting to topple
    Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with sophisticated weapons, hoping
    it would turn the tide in the opposition's favor in the three-year,
    brutal conflict.

    To bolster its argument that it is taking concrete steps to limit the
    actions of jihadist groups fighting in Syria, Saudi Arabia passed
    unprecedented anti-terror laws that specifically targeted Saudi
    nationals fighting abroad, as well as listing Jabhat al-Nusra, the
    Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and the Muslim Brotherhood
    as terrorist organizations.

    Proponents for further militarization of the Syrian war insist that
    "moderate" rebel fighters can be trusted with such sophisticated
    weaponry, and can be used as a counterweight to rising jihadist groups
    as well as to confront a national army receiving strong support from
    Iran, Russia, Iraq and Lebanon's Hezbollah.

    US officials continue to remain skeptical that such trustworthy,
    "moderate" rebels exist, or that arms provided to vetted, moderate
    rebels would not end up in the hands of the extremists. The
    distinction between "moderate" and "extremist" rebels in Syria has
    been presented in word only, without any substance to corroborate such
    a distinction. The Washington Post report, relying on "knowledgeable
    officials," states that Riyadh has agreed to exclude any fighters who
    have worked with three jihadist groups: Ahrar al-Sham, al-Qaeda's
    official affiliate in Syria Jabhat al-Nusra and al-Qaeda splinter
    group ISIS.

    This mistakenly presumes that those fighting in other rebel factions
    are considered reliable to be armed with sophisticated weapons, and
    espouse moderate beliefs. A number of key Salafist and extremist
    factions operate beyond the three listed groups, and are wrongly
    touted as "moderate."

    The Islamic Front, for instance, is a nationwide coalition bringing
    together a number of Salafist groups that equally hold extremist
    ideologies. Ahrar al-Sham is one of the founding members of the
    Islamic Front, and is mainly active in Aleppo and the north. Jaish
    al-Islam, another key member of the coalition, largely operates in
    the Damascus countryside and is headed by Zahran Alloush. According
    to Syria expert Joshua Landis, the "difference between his ideology
    and that of al-Qaeda groups is not profound."

    The Islamic Front rejects democracy, a civil state and secularism,
    instead calling for a strict interpretation of Sharia and the
    resurrection of the Islamic umma. Syrian opposition sources and
    Western diplomats have told Al-Monitor that Islamic Front factions
    in the north are largely financed and supported by Qatar and Turkey,
    while Alloush's Jaish al-Islam in Damascus enjoys Saudi support.

    Saudi also touted Bashar al-Zoubi, head of the Yarmouk Brigade
    operating in the country's south, as a potential "moderate" local
    partner that the West could trust. Zoubi was to head the new "Southern
    Front" that would, in an ideal Saudi world, receive US weapons through
    the Jordanian border. As reported in Al-Monitor, Zoubi, however, has
    worked with Jabhat al-Nusra on several occasions. Does this exclude
    Zoubi from receiving sophisticated weapons, as per Saudi Arabia's
    proposed criteria cited by the Washington Post?

    Jaish al-Mujahedeen, a small coalition of Islamist factions in Aleppo,
    has also popped up with much fanfare after it participated in attacks
    against the much-reviled ISIS. Do they fit the "moderate" criterion?

    In March, Mujahedeen fighters forced prominent opposition civilian
    activist, Marcell Shehrawo -- a Christian -- to wear an Islamic veil.

    Although the group later apologized, its overt Islamist leanings do
    not bode confidence in Jaish al-Mujahedeen as a reliable recipient
    of sophisticated weaponry.

    One of the rare less-Islamist fighting forces, the Syrian
    Revolutionaries' Front, was also raised in some media outlets as
    a potential reliable partner on the ground. The group is known to
    be backed by Saudi Arabia, and its leader, Jamal Maarouf, has been
    accused of being a warlord who has diverted resources for his own use.

    Maarouf this week told The Independent that fighting al-Qaeda was
    not his problem, and openly confessed to working and sharing military
    supplies with its affiliate in Syria. A Qatar-leaning source in the
    Syrian National Coalition told Al-Monitor privately that Saudi-backed
    brigades, formerly part of the Free Syrian Army, were largely criminals
    and bandits that locals despised.

    More recently, the coordinated rebel attack on the Latakia countryside
    and the capture of the historic Syrian Armenian village of Kassab was
    celebrated by the Syrian National Coalition as a "military victory that
    will have important results." Again, misguided support was given to
    what was presented as noble, moderate revolutionaries in the Latakia
    offensive. One of the main factions that steered the Latakia offensive
    was Sham al-Islam, a radical jihadist outfit run by former Guantanamo
    Bay detainee and veteran Moroccan jihadist Ibrahim Benchekroune. His
    fighters are largely other North African jihadists, who, according to
    reports, removed crosses at Armenian churches in the village, sparking
    an outcry from Armenians across the world, including Kim Kardashian.

    Shant Kerbabian, a Syrian Armenian originally from Kassab, but based
    in Beirut, told Al-Monitor that locals fled out of fear for Jabhat
    al-Nusra.

    "The crosses were taken down. This was confirmed, I spoke to a
    senior member of the community there," Kerbabian said, adding that no
    massacres took place. Kerbabian, citing community leaders from Kassab,
    said that Jabhat al-Nusra was looting houses in Kassab after locals
    had left their belongings behind, transporting trucks into Turkey.

    Kerbabian added this demonstrated Turkey's direct involvement in the
    invasion of Kassab.

    "Jabhat al-Nusra fighters were saying that they want to bring their
    'brothers' [residing] in tents and refugee camps and put them in
    Kassab," Kerbabian said.

    Media narratives are forever looking for a "good guy" to fight the
    "bad guy," and are too quick to assign the "moderate" label to armed
    groups. But Syria is no Hollywood script, and the search for a noble
    rebel fighting force to combat Assad's forces has so far yielded
    few results. Having seemingly learnt from the Afghan experience,
    the Obama administration has been right to take a cautious approach
    to arming rebels that might one day turn their weapons on them.

    Britain's Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs,
    Hugh Robertson, underscored the West's primary concern in an interview
    with Al-Monitor last week.

    "There is a clear [jihadist] threat to the United Kingdom. There are
    jihadists there, around 400 [Britons] that are being radicalized
    in Syria. This increases the importance of a political settlement
    in Syria."

    The risks are too high to send weapons into a war where moderates
    are too few.

    The views presented here in this article are solely those of the
    author and do not represent the editorial position of Al-Monitor.

    http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/04/syria-moderates-kassab-jabhat-nusra-rebels-war.html

Working...
X