In Syria, jihadist numbers grow and they demand a harsh state

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FG
by FG
09-Sep-2012
 


A French surgeon working in the Homs area is reporting a notable increase in the proportion of his patients consist of extremist foreign jihadis who express no real interest in overthrowing Assad.   Their real concern is to establish a harsh Taliban-style state in Syria afterwards.
 See:

 //www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/08/us-syria-crisis-jihad-idUSBRE88708W20120908

THREE THINGS WE CANNOT CONCLUDE:

1.  That FSA and Al Queda are synonmous (a half-truth that is standard regime propaganda)

2. That the proportion of extremsts is just as high everywhere the opposition is strong or that anti-Assad civilian neighorhoods are pro-Al Queda.

3. That every Islamist jihadis fighting with the FSA admire Al Queda's or wants the same sort of government afterwards. 

Totalitarian communists correctly saw Democratic Socialists--not western anti-communists--as their most formidable enemies.  So too uncompromising Al Queda jihadis rage over "traitorous Muslim Brotherhood sell-outs."  who have  moderated partly after watching Erdogan's more palatable model.  With some reason, the MB remains suspect yet among non-Islamists who may hav noticed Erdogan's limited acceptance of western freedoms, especially when it comes to a free press.   Even so, the MB's natural interests require throwing in with the secularists rather than allying with Al Queda.  The MB is evolving and hopefully will continue to do so.  

How much more influence might Al Queda have among potential Islamists in Syria today if not for the MB as rival?  The one and only thing that might spur an MB/Al Queda alliance, as in Iraq a decade earlier would be any large scale committment of western land forces (i.e., infidels) to assist the rebellion.  That ain't going to happen.  

NOW FOR THE LEGITIMATE CONCLUSIONS

1. No one can dispute this is an awful develoment for everyone inside Syria--both for frightened Alawites, Druze and Christians and for all members of the FSA who are fighting against fascism and for democracy, whether secular or with moderate Islamist tinge.   As in WW II, when Stalin and the democratic West formed "an alliance of convenience" against a greater threat, so too here.  

2. Ironically, when this conflict ends Syrian minorities, pro-democratic FSA and the Brotherhood  will ally against Al Queda.  However any former shabiha known to have commmitted atrocities obviously cannot be included in that alliance.  That situation resembles Germany's after WW II.

3. The longer Assad takes to fall, the worst life will be for those who despise Al Queda or fear moderate Islamists.  Both groups gain more adherents as the conflict lasts.   Consider also that the destruction and economic damage Syria suffers mounts daily so long as Assad survive.

4. Both the number of suicide attacks inflicting large civilian casulaties on Syrian civilians after the war and the amount of time required to put an end to such terrorism will increase for each day Assad hangs on.   

5. Those targeted won't be limited to Shia (Alawites) or Christians and their chuches or Druze.   Anyone who opposed Taliban/Al Queda style rule will not be tolerated.

6. Good News::Neither the West, nor Putin, nor Iran (mullah ruled or not) can afford to allow an Al Queda triumph in the cockit of the Middle East.  As in Iraq, various special forces wil identfy and target known extremists but iot will take time while civilian casualties mount.

7. Thanks to Assad's chosen strategy, many minority civilians, perceived as having supported such strategies, are likely to suffer revenge attacks in a self-fulfilling that could have been avoided. 

8.  Outside Syria the longer it takes for Assad to fall, the more negative repercussions for Putin (especially in the Caucausus), for the IRI and sadly for any democratic Iranian government afterwards, for Iraq, for Lebanon and Hezbollah and, for Turkey and for the Kurds.

9. Had Assad stepped down earlier (following the example of Gorbachev and FW DeKlerk in South Africa) and if Putin kept Assad afloat for so long both , neither side would have this problem today or, if it did, the problem would exist For anyone who hates Al Queda or deplores sectarian conflict, the #1 person to blame.   Putin ranks #2 when it comes to assigning blame. 

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MRX

Interesting

by MRX on

guess it's not turning out the secular jeffersonian democracy you folks were hoping for. what a shock!


FG

Nasty, anti-USA Al Queda militant warns Syrians

by FG on

Excerpt:

A Jordanian militant leader linked to al-Qaida warned Sunday that his extremist group will launch "deadly attacks" in neighboring Syria to topple President Bashar Assad, as Damascus lashed out at France for backing Syrian rebels.

In a speech delivered to a crowd protesting outside the prime minister's office in Amman, Mohammad al-Shalabi, better known as Abu Sayyaf, told Assad that "our fighters are coming to get you."...

Militants linked to al-Qaida, many from Iraq but also reportedly several from Jordan, are believed to have made inroads among Syrian rebels as the civil war their intensifies...

In Jordan, security officials say in private that Abu Sayyaf's group comprises several hundred activists....Western officials say there is little doubt that Islamist extremists, including fighters from other Muslim countries, have made inroads in Syria as instability has spread. Al-Qaida-style suicide bombings have become increasingly common.

//news.yahoo.com/jordan-militant-warns-attacks-syria-125546463.html


FG

Tip: Avoid riding buses with Assad's soldiers

by FG on

A bomb attack on a bus carrying civilians and troops in the central Syrian province of Homs killed at least four people and wounded dozens more on Sunday, state media and a rights watchdog said.

To read more: //www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=434539#ixzz235d4kQiq 

Notice the location of the attack: Homs where the French doctor made his original observations.  

Unlike the regular FSA, the most extreme jihadis don't worry about collateral damage to civlians when they place a bomb.   Even where some victims might be sympathetic to Al Queda philosophy, the thinking seems to be, "No harm done.  They'll get their reward in the afterlife."


FG

USEFUL PUPPETS:Assad seeks to implicate minorities in his crimes

by FG on

Excerpt: 

The most recent developments in Syria indicate that Bashar al-Assad is stepping up his efforts to entwine himself with other Syrian minority groups by calling up reservists from these groups and arming communal neighborhood militias. This tactic is perhaps less of a military nature than of a political one.

 

Assad is still playing to win, but with his already limited manpower constantly shrinking, the president is exploiting Syria’s fissures to embed the regime in as many communal pockets as possible...

 

Assad had begun this strategy with his core base, the Alawites. He systematically implicated the Alawites in the regime’s sectarian mass killings against Sunnis, thereby seeking to widen the target for the rebels’ retaliation beyond the regime. ..

The regime always sought to cast as wide a net as possible to drag in the country's minority communities. Not satisfied with the tacit support of minority groups like the Christians and the Druze, Assad is trying to engineer an explicit minoritarian alignment behind him, one that actively implicates these groups against the Sunnis...

Assad’s ploy, however, is unlikely to solve the problem of his continuously dwindling manpower. None of these minorities is eager to enlist in Assad’s army, and most choose to flea the country instead. Nor is it clear that the disparate, small-scale formations of Druze and Christian neighborhood militias will be sufficient to embroil the FSA and limit its increasing expansion. In other words, the military significance of this strategy is highly questionable.

 

Rather, the move is primarily political. Assad seeks to assemble the minorities around him in order to present himself as the sole and unavoidable interlocutor on behalf of these segments of Syrian society, where he has cultivated loyal patches.



//www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=434289#ixzz235YOUUOp 

TO READERS:

It is important to go to the full story to see exactly how Assad is doing it.  It's actually quite clever tp see the extent to which Assad has gone lately.  

Obviously these minoritie are not thinking ahead as they relieve Assad from tying down forces and aid in his atrocities.  Even before Assad's fall, it's likely many of these militias will suffer huge casualties via the FSA for a cause that is already lost.


FG

An Example of what Assad, Putin & Delay Will Have Accomplished

by FG on

Coming after Assad to Syria, Russia, Lebanone, etc. though this news item is from Iraq: 

Iraq blasts kill 100 

//www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/09/us-iraq-hashemi-idUSBRE88806O20120909

DOWN MEMORY LANE 

Recall how Assad aided and abetted these same Al Queda proxies a decade ago in Iraq and sheltered them when Americans drove them out.

Recall how overwheming majorities in the Midde East approved of Al Queda as in 2001 when its victims were non-muslims.  

Recall how prominent news anchors and scholars claimed "Al Queda was framed" because "no muslim would commit such crimes againt civilians"  Ask Iranians, Pakistanis, Syrians, etc, if they still believe that.

Why have attitudes changed so drastically since those days?


FG

In Aleppo, Assad persists in Standard Rule 101

by FG on

The Rule: When you suffer a defeat and you can't kill FSA fighters, massacre civiians hoping that will turn them against the FSA. 

 

Syrian jets bomb Aleppo district after rebels seize base

 


Excerpt

Decisive victory has eluded both sides, with rebels lacking heavy weapons needed to down aircraft and knock out artillery and Assad loath to send conscript troops of questionable loyalty into cities to re-establish dominance on the ground.

Instead, government forces have been bombarding population centers to try to turn residents against rebels dug in there, according to diplomats following the revolt.

Sunday's air raid destroyed a residential complex in the Hananu neighborhood, one of several in eastern Aleppo under rebel control, opposition activists told Reuters by phone.

The death toll was not immediately clear but dozens of bodies and wounded people were being dug out from the rubble. Video footage from the area showed scores of people searching and digging in the debris of a flattened building.

//www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/09/us-syria-crisis-idUSBRE8860TF20120909


FG

The short-sightedness of Putin & Syrian minorities

by FG on

In one respect, both of the above have become more realistic lately.  No one still believes Assad can survive.  The only question is "For how long?"

COMMON SENSE FOR ANYONE WHO STILL BACK ASSAD

If you except Assad is done for and if you agree with the probable consequences of delaying the inevitable, why do so?  Does it make sense to support Assad even a single minute longer?

THE FANTASY THAT EXPLAINS PUTIN'S ODD BEHAVIOR

By pounding into rubble any neighborhood where Assad is unloved, raping and executing civilians in the process, one can force the opposition to join a "unity" government.  

If such an offer had been extended to European Jews once the certainty of Germany's defeat became obvious, would they have accepted a unity governent that included Hitler, Himler, Julius Streicher, Goebbels, etc.?   

Putin knows Assad is going down and knows the consequences of delay. The Fantasy keeps him going.  Putin will wait until the final weeks to switch sides, locking the barn door after the horse has already gone. 

BURNED BRIDGES & SYRIA'S MINORITIES  

No doubt some are aware of what happened to their German counterparts after April of 1945. Trusting the lies of state media, Syria's minorities endorsed and supported Assad's atrocities as "a necessary evil."  Many played a leading hand.  Tribal ties and patronage ties helped.  The longer Assad survives, the more atrocities will occur so the worst the consequences will get.

Shabiha who directly engagd in rape, torture, eye gouging, throat slitting and exectution of innocent "others" including women and children, can expect the worst and most prolonged treatment.  

More innocent civilians who "only" backed Assad politically will suffer prevent some atrocities at the hands of fighters whose homes and loved ones got full treatment.  Score-settling of this sort tends to be short range unless the other side responds in kind.

Al Queda will target everyone including FSA and the Brotherood.  It did not have to be.  Thank Assad, Putin and all who endorsed so many crimes for far too long.