| New York Times | - |
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Fighters from the fastest-growing Qaeda franchise in Syria
have repeatedly clashed with other rebel brigades, seizing towns,
replacing crosses on churches with black flags and holding classes to
teach Syrian children about the ...
Qaeda Branch in Syria Pursues Its Own Agenda
Mohammed Abdul Aziz/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A group of men looked at a
flag associated with the Qaeda franchise knows as the Islamic State in
Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, on Saturday in the northern rebel-held Syrian
city of Raqqa.
By BEN HUBBARD
Published: October 1, 2013 36 Comments
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Fighters from the fastest-growing Qaeda franchise in
Syria have repeatedly clashed with other rebel brigades, seizing towns,
replacing crosses on churches with black flags and holding classes to
teach Syrian children about the importance of battling “infidels,”
meaning anyone who is not a Sunni Muslim.
Multimedia
Related
-
Countries Agree to Special Quotas for Syrian Refugees (October 2, 2013)
-
Chemical Arms Team to Begin Talks With Syria (October 2, 2013)
Readers’ Comments
Share your thoughts.
Since the group, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, announced
its presence in Syria this year, it has emerged as the leading force
for the foreign fighters streaming into the country, exploiting the
chaos of the civil war as it tries to lay the groundwork for an Islamic
state.
“They want to carve out a jihadi state or a jihadi territory and
obviously anything above that is gravy, like overthrowing the Assad
regime,” said Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for Security Studies
at Georgetown University. “I don’t think they have ambitions of taking
over the entire country, although they’d be happy to.”
While the Syrian rebels initially welcomed the group as a powerful ally
in the civil war against President Bashar al-Assad, many now resent it
for putting its international jihadi agenda ahead of the fight to topple
the government. Antigovernment activists say they detest the group’s
brutality and imposition of strict social codes, and even other Islamist
rebels say the struggle’s focus should remain on leadership change.
The tensions have set off frequent fighting between rebel groups that
has undermined the effort to combat the government and could complicate
efforts to dispose of Syria’s chemical weapons. An advance team from the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons arrived in
Damascus on Tuesday to discuss with Syrian officials the logistics of
destroying the country’s chemical arsenal. Officials from the group said
keeping its personnel safe during a raging civil war would be extremely
difficult.
The rise of extremist groups has exacerbated Syria’s instability. ISIS
has attacked rebel bases to capture supplies, and routed rebel groups
last month to seize control of Azaz, a strategic city near the Turkish
border, leading to a tense cease-fire. Last week, Qaeda fighters tried
to storm a village in Idlib Province to kidnap some rebels, leaving 20
dead from both sides, including the jihadis’ Libyan commander.
“We want to keep Syria together as a country of freedom and equality,” a
leader in an Islamist rebel group opposed to ISIS, called Suqour
al-Sham, who gave his name as Abu Bashir, said via Skype. “They want to
form an Islamic state that comes together with Iraq.”
In an audio statement released online late Monday, a Qaeda spokesman
defended the group, saying its contributions to the anti-Assad fight had
been underappreciated and denying that it had started fights with rebel
groups.
“Those who aspire to sideline the state are many because of incorrect
beliefs and doctrines,” said the spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani
al-Shami. “They are greedy for power and for the worthless things of
this world.”
Analysts say the group is a revival and extension of Al Qaeda in Iraq,
whose sectarian-fueled insurgency pushed that country to the brink of
civil war in 2006 and 2007, before the group suffered major defeats at
the hands of tribal fighters and American troops.
In Syria, however, the group has found the vast territories that have
fallen into rebel hands near Syria’s northern and eastern borders as an
ideal environment to regroup and advance its agenda.
The area is stateless, covered by a weak patchwork of local councils and
rebel groups struggling to administer their towns and often competing
with one another for resources. This gives the group a wide area to work
in with no immediate enemies. The porousness of the Iraqi and Turkish
borders also makes it easy for the group to bring in supplies and
fighters.
Brian Fishman, a former director of research at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point and now a fellow at the New America Foundation, said those factors gave Al Qaeda a more favorable environment in Syria than it ever had in Iraq.
“The conditions in Syria will be ripe for ISIS for quite some time,” he said.
The group is headed by an Iraqi named Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Its fighters
hail from across the Arab world, Chechnya and other parts of Europe and
are commanded by local emirs to whom they pledge obedience, according
to rebels in contact with the group.
- 1
- 2
No comments:
Post a Comment