Al-Qaeda-Style Rebels ‘Key’ to Civil War
Long Spurned by Other Rebel Factions, al-Nusra Front and Center on Battlefield
The al-Nusra Front, an Islamist rebel faction in Syria which styles itself after al-Qaeda, and which some Western officials say may be directly linked to al-Qaeda, has long been the red-headed stepchild of Syria’s rebel movement, spurned from even other Islamist umbrella groups for fear that their involvement would taint the rest.
The group first made a name for itself killing journalists and burning TV stations, and while the rest of the rebellion has tried to spin itself as moderately as possible, if only for the sake of Western funding, al-Nusra has eschewed this strategy in favor of indiscriminate killing, and has done such a bang-up job of it that now analysts say they may be the “key” to the rebel victory, and are vital to recent rebel offensives.
Which means the battle is now re-branding al-Nusra from the car-bombing lunatic fringe of the rebel movement, the one that is why so many nations are reluctant to arm them, into a fashionable sort of extremist, the kind the West can really sink their teeth into.
That’s going to be a tough sell, but comments from the group insisting that they see no need for elections because they assume the vast majority of Syrians would be fine with a harsh brand of Sharia law could easily be shifted into the sort of “single-candidate” vote that the US and others have found so palatable in post-revolution Yemen.
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Jan Burton
December 2nd, 2012 at 9:09 pm
So the West is now cheering on Al Qaeda in destroying the last secular regime in the Arab world.
I guess this really means the war on terror is over.
mojo
December 2nd, 2012 at 10:18 pm
Stop arming these barbarians, you helping a Neo dictatorial regimes to establish itself, you helping nothing, no democracy nor a just system. You want Justice, vote for Justice Party, democrats nor the Republicans will give it to you unless their name is Ron Paul.
Ben_C
December 2nd, 2012 at 11:25 pm
Without comment on this "news", and without addressing and debunking the disinformation and manipulations which have been at work since the beginning of the "crisis" in Syria, I will just post this:
"…
Since the early days of this crisis, we announced a number of clear political steps to enhance the development process through popular participation in order to undercut all those who tried to hide under slogans of reform and make use of the events for unpatriotic and dishonorable objectives. These steps have been achieved within the announced timeframe contrary to the expectations of our foes and enemies who doubted our intentions. Despite the denials of these achievements in the political sphere on the part of foreign and domestic powers which have wagered on the crisis, and despite continuing attempts to undermine the political process, we have never stopped carrying out what we announced and what we started. Laws have been passed, local administration elections have been held, and later on there was a referendum on the constitution in response to those attempts. Holding the People's Assembly elections on time despite the killing, the threats and the terrorism was the decisive response of the people against the killers and the criminals and their masters and financiers. This constitutional and democratic step came as a slap on the face of all those who wanted Syria to be closed onto itself and to swim in the blood of its children and go backward decades into the past. Here is Syria with a new parliament completing the process that we have promised before the crisis and during it and moving towards the future with a great deal of hope, determination and defiance.
These events have caused a great deal of suffering to our homeland and consumed a great deal of its material and non-material resources. In my first speech under the roof of this Assembly, and when the crisis was in its first weeks, I talked about the outside factor without emphasizing it since the greatest responsibility of any failure in any house is that of the owners of the house and those who live in it before it is the responsibility of foreigners. But at that time, some people went as far as denying the existence of the foreign factor altogether and considered this argument an escape from internal obligations. They argued that the gist of the problem a disagreement between Syrian parties and that what is happening on the ground is a purely peaceful movement and that the source of any violence is the state. Some people made this argument in malice and bad faith and others made it with naivety, lack of knowledge, and as a result of media forgeries. Now, and after more than a year from the beginning of these events, things are clearer and masks have been lifted. The international role in what is happening is already well-known not only for decades, but for centuries past. And I don't think it's going to change in the foreseeable future. Colonialism is still colonialism. It only changed in terms of methods and ways of attack. The regional role has exposed itself when it moved from one failure to another in the plans of its perpetrators. It had to declare the truth of its positions and intentions through its own officials. As for local figures and forces, who have appointed themselves agents of the people, they saw the people expressing themselves on the streets without any need for guardians or agents taking the opportunity to jump on the bandwagon of an ephemeral wave and seeking to build glories for themselves at the expense of the people's blood. The people have despised and categorically rejected all those who have planted their bodies in the country while their hearts and brains lay outside. On the other hand, there were those who proposed ideas in order to reach solutions from the beginning of the crisis. Some based their views on an emotional reaction to a crisis which has been planned by pure reason. Others based their arguments on available information without deeper examination of a crisis built on a solid foundation of forgery. We highly appreciate good intentions, but what is happening is more complicated and dangerous than allowing to be dealt with in a simplistic analysis or emotional reactions or utopian ideas. After all these starkly clear facts and after all the innocent blood which has been spilled and the innocent souls which have been lost, we are in need of a tremendous amount of reason. We need to learn from the people to which we belong and which was able to decipher the conspiracy from its early beginnings and expose the highly complicated forgeries based on people's instinct which is never mistaken and a national memory feeding on a heritage rich in experience and a moral accumulation which has fortified our society against deviation and protected our traditions and our identity from annihilation. What we have learned from the people is a simple, old and deep principle. If we want to solve a problem, all we have to do is face this problem and not run away from it. Most of the proposed solutions have expressed an unconscious case of escaping forward. Facing the problem might be painful in most cases, but in the end it will provide the cure, while running away from the problem is similar to the case of an addict who feels a false ecstasy while in real fact is moving towards death.
…"
–President Bashar al-Assad (06/03/2012)
http://syrianfreepress.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/b…
Ben_C
December 2nd, 2012 at 11:26 pm
…
What was said seems to make sense and seems logical…to me at least…based on the “facts” available and, of course, taking into consideration “reality”.
Be that as it may, if "we" are to ignore 'all' statements made by 'all' "officials"–"elected" or otherwise–I assume it would be wise to discount and ignore everything that Congressman Ron Paul has ever 'said'…or, taking the opposite 'position', accept everything Mr. Obama and/or Mr. Romney has 'said' at face value and as "truth"?
Please advise on this AW.C…
mojo
December 3rd, 2012 at 1:04 pm
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the US was concerned that such an action might be taken by "an increasingly beleaguered regime".
A Syrian official has insisted it would "never, under any circumstances" use such weapons, "if such weapons exist".
During the planing of Iraq invasion the White House said the same thing abut the WMD, they never found such weapon because Iraqi government proved to the world that they don't have such weapon. Yet U.S invaded Iraq and killed more then a million Iraqis including the very same sunny Muslims that White House is helping all over, if this is the begging a plan for invading syria then U.S government committing another war crime as Iraq. At the same time providing weapon to those whom are chosen by U.S, mostly sunny Muslims or terrorist is yet another act of illegal war done differently and secretly which is no secret any longer. The respect for democracy is something that comes from the principals and justice within the democracy, you don't have that here, the democrats hypocrisy-hypocrites therefor talking , again, the double language showing their double moral of yet another issue that's not proven and doesn't exist.