MOST REBEL FACTIONS FIGHTING ASSAD AND AREAS UNDER THEIR CONTROL ARE ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALIST

Read = fellow travelors of al-Qaida

Time to end the facade that it’s otherwise, we might then be able to build a more coherent foreign policy towards the Syrians once Assad is no longer in control.

Read Andy Bostom’s piece in full:

“Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of.”

Just before Christmas, 2012 (12/24/12) , I wrote an extensive critique of US policy in Syria (with the eponymous title, “Why Is America Midwiving a Muslim Brotherhood-Ruled Syria?”).  My analysis highlighted the deep seated, mainstream Islamic, vox populi-supported Syrian Muslim Brotherhood jihad to reverse both Western colonial, and subsequent dictatorial Baathist secularization.
Now, aligned with the modern “Al Qaeda movement” jihadist fighters the global Muslim Brotherhood has spawned, the long held dream of re-imposing full-fledged Sharia in Syria is being realized, as acknowledged in an April 28, 2013 New York Times report.

Nusrah-executes-Syrian-soldiers

Islamist Rebels’ Gains in Syria Create Dilemma for U.S.

By BEN HUBBARD
Published: April 28, 2013

CAIRO – In Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, rebels aligned with Al Qaeda control the power plant, run the bakeries and head a court that applies Islamic law. Elsewhere, they have seized government oil fields, put employees back to work and now profit from the crude they produce.

Across Syria, rebel-held areas are dotted with Islamic courts staffed by lawyers and clerics, and by fighting brigades led by extremists. Even the Supreme Military Council, the umbrella rebel organization whose formation the West had hoped would sideline radical groups, is stocked with commanders who want to infuse Islamic law into a future Syrian government.

Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of.

This is the landscape President Obama confronts as he considers how to respond to growing evidence that Syrian officials have used chemical weapons, crossing a “red line” he had set. More than two years of violence have radicalized the armed opposition fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad, leaving few groups that both share the political vision of the United States and have the military might to push it forward.

Among the most extreme groups is the notorious Al Nusra Front, the Qaeda-aligned force declared a terrorist organization by the United States, but other groups share aspects of its Islamist ideology in varying degrees.

“Some of the more extremist opposition is very scary from an American perspective, and that presents us with all sorts of problems,” said Ari Ratner, a fellow at the Truman National Security Project and former Middle East adviser in the Obama State Department. “We have no illusions about the prospect of engaging with the Assad regime – it must still go – but we are also very reticent to support the more hard-line rebels.”

Syrian officials recognize that the United States is worried that it has few natural allies in the armed opposition and have tried to exploit that with a public campaign to convince, or frighten, Washington into staying out of the fight. At every turn they promote the notion that the alternative to Mr. Assad is an extremist Islamic state.

The Islamist character of the opposition reflects the main constituency of the rebellion, which has been led since its start by Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority, mostly in conservative, marginalized areas. The descent into brutal civil war has hardened sectarian differences, and the failure of more mainstream rebel groups to secure regular arms supplies has allowed Islamists to fill the void and win supporters.

The religious agenda of the combatants sets them apart from many civilian activists, protesters and aid workers who had hoped the uprising would create a civil, democratic Syria.

More at the Times.

2 Replies to “MOST REBEL FACTIONS FIGHTING ASSAD AND AREAS UNDER THEIR CONTROL ARE ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALIST”

  1. The most naive observers could have thought that Obama’s “intervention” in Egypt was not a blatent assistance to install the Muslim Brotherhood…this time, even the most naive observers MUST see that the noises he makes to help the euphemistically names “rebels” are the preparation for a consolidation of his true plan: Like in WW2 the grand mufti of Jerusalem actively helped the Nazis in their efforts, so does the Obama administration help the Muslim Brotherhood which are – if anything – worse than Hitlers henchmen.