.
There's no such thing as 'moderate' Free Syrian Army claimed by US, per US journalist held captive for 2 yrs., NY Times: "The F.S.A. transferred me to a group of Islamists, and I
had my first lesson in how to distinguish Islamist fighters from the
Free Syrian Army:...They torture you more slowly."...10/29/14, "My Captivity," NYT, Padnos
11/2/14, "U.S.-backed Syria rebels routed by fighters linked to al-Qaeda," Washington Post, Liz Sly, Beirut
"The Obama administration’s Syria strategy suffered a major setback
Sunday after fighters linked to al-Qaeda routed U.S.-backed rebels from
their main northern strongholds, capturing significant quantities of
weaponry, triggering widespread defections and ending hopes that
Washington will readily find Syrian partners in its war against the
Islamic State.
Moderate rebels who had been armed and trained by the United States either surrendered or defected to the extremists as
the Jabhat al-Nusra group, affiliated with al-Qaeda, swept through the
towns and villages the moderates controlled in the northern province of
Idlib, in what appeared to be a concerted push to vanquish the moderate
Free Syrian Army, according to rebel commanders, activists and analysts.
Other
moderate fighters were on the run, headed for the Turkish border as the
extremists closed in, heralding a significant defeat for the rebel
forces Washington had been counting on as a bulwark against the Islamic
State.
Moderates still retain a strong presence in southern Syria, but the Islamic State has not been a major factor there.
A
senior Defense Department official said the Pentagon “is monitoring
developments as closely as possible” but could “not independently
verify” reports from the ground. The official was not authorized to
comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Jabhat al-Nusra has long been regarded by Syrians as less radical than
the breakaway Islamic State faction, and it had participated alongside
moderate rebels in battles against the Islamic State earlier this year.
But it is also on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations and is the
only group in Syria that has formally declared its allegiance to the
mainstream al-Qaeda leadership.
A Jabhat al-Nusra base was one of the first targets hit when the
United States launched its air war in Syria in September, and activists
said the tensions fueled by that attack had contributed to the success
of the group’s push against the moderate rebels.
“When American
airstrikes targeted al-Nusra, people felt solidarity with them because
Nusra are fighting the regime, and the strikes are helping the regime,”
said Raed al-Fares, an activist leader in Kafr Nabel, in Idlib.
“Now people think that whoever in the Free Syrian Army gets support from the U.S.A. is an agent of the regime,” he said. Fleeing
rebel fighters said they feared the defeat would spell the end of the
Free Syrian Army, the umbrella name used by the moderate rebel groups
that the United States has somewhat erratically sought to promote as an
alternative both to the Assad regime and the extremist Islamic State.
Among
the groups whose bases were overrun in the assault was Harakat Hazm,
the biggest recipient of U.S. assistance offered under a small-scale,
covert CIA program launched this year, including the first deliveries of
U.S.-made TOW antitank missiles. The group’s headquarters outside the
village of Khan Subbul was seized by Jabhat al-Nusra overnight Saturday,
after rebel fighters there surrendered their weapons and fled without a
fight, according to residents in the area.
Hussam
Omar, a spokesman for Harakat Hazm, refused to confirm whether American
weaponry had been captured by the al-Qaeda affiliate because, he said,
negotiations with Jabhat al-Nusra are underway.
Harakat Hazm, whose name means “Steadfastness Movement,” had also
received small arms and ammunition alongside non-lethal aid in the form
of vehicles, food and uniforms from the United States and its European
and Persian Gulf Arab allies grouped as the Friends of Syria alliance.
Scores of its fighters had received U.S. training in Qatar under the
covert program, but it was also not possible to confirm whether any of
those fighters had defected to the al-Qaeda affiliate.
.
Another
Western-backed group, the Syrian Revolutionary Front, on Saturday gave
up its bases in Jabal al-Zawiya, a collection of mountain villages that
had been under the control of the pro-American warlord Jamal Maarouf
since 2012. A video posted on YouTube showed Jabhat al-Nusra fighters
unearthing stockpiles of weaponry at Maarouf’s headquarters in his home
town of Deir Sunbul.
.
In a separate video, Maarouf, addressing the
Jabhat al-Nusra leadership, said he fled along with those of his men
who had not defected, “to preserve the blood of civilians, because you
behead people and slaughter them if they do not obey you.”
.
The
loss of northern Idlib province could prove a crippling blow to the
moderate rebels, whose fight against Assad’s regime began in 2012 and
has since been complicated by the rise of rival Islamist groups with
goals very different from those of the original revolutionaries.
.
Idlib
was the last of the northern Syrian provinces where the Free Syrian
Army maintained a significant presence, and groups there had banded
together in January to eject the Islamic State in the first instance in
which Syrians had turned against the extremist radicals.
Most of the rest of northern Syria is controlled by the Islamic
State, apart from a small strip of territory around the city of Aleppo.
There the rebels are fighting to hold at bay both the Islamic State and
the forces of the Assad government, and the defeat in Idlib will further
isolate those fighters.
.
Perhaps most significant, it will
complicate the task of finding Syrian allies willing to join the fight
against the Islamic State, said Charles Lister of the Qatar-based
Brookings Doha Center.
“The United States and its allies are
depending very strongly on having armed organizations on the ground to
call upon to fight the Islamic State,
and now those groups have taken a
very significant defeat,” he said.
Although some groups have
already been receiving U.S. support, it was never sufficient to tilt the
balance of power on the ground, Lister said. “This sends a message that
Western support doesn’t equal success,” he added.
The limited
assistance program already underway is expected to be supplemented by a
bigger, overt, $500 million program to train and equip moderate rebels
that was first announced by President Obama in June and that has become a
central component of the U.S. strategy to confront the Islamic State.
But
U.S. officials have said it could be months before the program starts,
and longer before it takes effect, thereby giving an incentive to the
moderates’ foes to challenge them before any significant help arrives.
Although
the administration has long voiced its support for the rebel fighters,
direct U.S. aid to them has been slow and scant, with weapons shipments
and a CIA training program limited by the need to vet the fighters for
any ties to militants.
More extensive aid to the rebels has also been
withheld in the interest of promoting a negotiated political solution
that would remove Assad from power while leaving Syrian institutions,
including the military, intact.
.
In public
remarks last week, national security adviser Susan E. Rice acknowledged
that the U.S.-backed rebels “are fighting a multifront conflict, which
is obviously taking a real toll on them.” The expanded military
train-and-equip mission, Rice said, “is, in the first instance, going to
enable them to fend off ISIL, but it is also designed and originated
with the concept of trying to help create conditions on the ground that
are conducive to negotiations. And that means helping them in their
conflict against Assad as well.” .
Meanwhile, the extension of the
air war to Syria in September has drawn widespread complaints from
moderate rebels that their goal of ousting the Assad regime is being
shunted aside in the effort to fight the Islamic State, which is also
known as ISIL. Anecdotal evidence that the airstrikes have indirectly
aided the Assad government in its efforts to crush the rebellion has
further fueled resentment.
.
Besides southern Syria, where the
Islamic State has not established a significant foothold, moderate
groups are also still fighting in scattered pockets around Damascus. But
the U.S. campaign against the Islamic State is focused on the northern
part of the country, where the group has entrenched itself across vast
areas of territory for more than a year."
=======================
ISIS and Al-Nusra fought side by side in US loss-AFP:
"Despite a fierce rivalry between Al-Nusra and the Islamic State group,
the Observatory said individual IS jihadists had fought alongside
Al-Nusra in the recent clashes against the SRF in Idlib." (end of article)
11/2/14, "Qaeda group takes Syria town from US-backed rebels: monitor," AFP via France24.com
=======================
10/29/14, "My Captivity," NY Times Magazine, Theo Padnos. "Theo Padnos, American Journalist, on Being Kidnapped, Tortured and Released in Syria"
.
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