Syria's rebels not as Islamist as you think - yet
Syrian anti-regime fighters and civilians are reflected in the window of a car during the funeral of a victim who died from shelling on the rebel stronghold of Qusayr, Syria, June 23, 2012. / AFP/Getty Images
(The New Republic) If you want to know where the fourteen month-old Syrian revolution against President Bashar al-Assad is headed, the case of Walid al-Boustani provides a useful rubric. Al-Boustani led an ill-fated "Islamic Emirate of Homs" that lasted only a few weeks. Apparently the locals did not appreciate having an "Emir" who kidnapped and murdered their people while claiming to wage jihad against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. And so in March 2012 a local brigade of the Free Syrian Army executed the Lebanese-born al-Boustani, amidst accusations that the jihadist was not only a traitor to the Syrian revolution but also, in fact, an agent of the Syrian regime.
The incident is part of a larger clash that has mostly gone overlooked in the Western media -- namely, the struggle between Syria's two main armed opposition groups, groups that represent two radically different visions for Syria's future. In that way, it's not enough to simply know -- as a recent article in the New York Times pointed out -- that Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with assistance from the CIA, are funneling arms and cash to certain Syrian rebel groups via intermediaries in Turkey. It's also important to know that the other rebel groups -- those with an Islamist political agenda -- that the United States and its allies have decided not to support are distrusted by the Syrian people themselves. Indeed, Washington's largely hands-off approach to the Syria crisis has so far been greatly assisted by the Syrian public's broad rejection of the hardcore Islamist rebels. But there's no telling how much longer America's strategic interests and the Syrian people's sympathies will remain in sync.
The faction of the Syrian opposition that has been the main recipient of foreign arms is the Free Syrian Army (FSA), an umbrella organization headquartered in Turkey and encompassing upwards of a hundred semi-autonomous battalions of defected Syrian soldiers and armed civilians. Though many individual units and fighters loyal to the FSA adopt a conservative Islamic idiom and may express their struggle as "jihad," the FSA central leadership espouses pluralist, nationalist, and even democratic ideals, reflecting its broad base of support in Syria, as well as the influence of its international sponsors.
The second group (broadly construed) vying for primacy of the Syrian armed opposition is the constellation of independent, hardcore Islamist "kata'ib" (brigades) claiming to wage violent jihad against the infidel Assad regime and its Shia backers, Iran and Hezbollah. The independent jihadist opposition draws from an expanding domestic pool of young men who feel abandoned by the international community and emboldened by the popularity of their radical Islamist cause beyond Syria's borders and over social media.
The good news is that, Syrians mostly distrust the hardcore Islamists. While much of the public is liable to celebrate any attack against government forces, they remain deeply suspicious of the numerous, independent jihadist groups taking root throughout the country. A public opinion survey conducted by the US Institute of Peace in September 2011 found that only 35 percent of Syrians see religion as an important issue in the anti-government demonstrations, with less than 14 percent preferring religious leaders or parties to lead a post-Assad Syria as compared to 66 percent who viewed "democratically-elected leaders" as the most qualified.
Compounding Syrians' ideological unease with jihadists is the widespread concern that Islamist groups have either been infiltrated by, or are directly working for the Syrian regime. Western media mostly overlooked the story of Walid al-Boustani, the would-be Emir of Homs, but the video of Boustani's "trial" and execution by the FSA stirred considerable speculation among Arab audiences, who focused not on Boustani's specific crimes but rather on his ties to a discredited Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group back in Lebanon, Fatah al-Islam, which is widely believed to be a tool of Syrian intelligence.
It is well-established that the Syrian government in the past facilitated the transit of fighters to Al-Qaeda in Iraq through Syria in order to fight American coalition forces -- and some of these battle-hardened jihadists have likely come back to Syria. But the Assad regime's understanding with Islamic extremists has always been to allow them to attack their common enemy as long as they did not operate within Syria itself. This deal with the devil spared Syria from terrorist attacks for nearly 30 years, but the upshot is that any jihadist group emerging in Syria today -- especially one whose operations and rhetoric so neatly validate the regime's narrative of a terrorist conspiracy -- is immediately suspected of being a government creation.
The most prominent example of these deep-seated suspicions among Syrians is the popular perception of a group named Jabhat al-Nusra (JN, also known as the Al-Nusra Front), that has claimed responsibility for a number of suicide bombings across the country. The majority of Syrians -- according to anecdotal evidence from Syrian social media sites -- believe that all of JN's claimed operations were in fact perpetrated by the regime's thugs. This, despite the fact that JN's statements are carried over official Al-Qaeda internet channels, and despite assertions by Western intelligence agencies that JN is an Al-Qaeda affiliate bent on bringing down the Syrian regime.
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Tyler Golson is an Arabic social media analyst with Concepts & Strategies, Inc. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
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You would have a modicum of credibility if you can prove any part of what I said as incorrect, rather than indulging in infantile name-calling, which is the refuge of those having no sound logic to offer.
@JamesSao
If your logic is as sound as your guesses, which, BTW are totally wrong, then it is no wonder you cannot refute my post with any sound logic.
You would have a modicum of cridibility if you can prove any part of what I said as incorrect, rather than indulging in infantile name-calling, which is the refuge of those having no sound logic to offer.
@JamesSao
If your logic is as sound as your guesses, which, BTW are totally wrong, then it is no wonder you cannot refute my post with any sound logic.
What an incredibly stupid (to the point of obscene) premise for an article, on several levels.
First, it doesn't matter how "Islamist" a group may or may not be, it is their business, and theirs alone, to do what they feel they must in their own country, just as it is Assad's duty, and his alone, to do what he needs to do to eliminate anarchy.
It is an internal problem, and "you" have nothing to fear, as well as having no right to interfere, in what goes on there, just as Assad has no right to interfere in what goes on in the US.
This will mean absolutely nothing to the pig trucker in Ohio, or the bagger in Aryanzona, there is no "threat" that "Islamists" will cause, or force said trucker to convert to Islam.
9/11? Pulleeze, Bush alone caused more Americans to die than the 9/11 perps did. Statistically, there is exponentially more harm to be concerned about from the Sanduskys, Zimmermans, Santorums, Mehserles, Romneys, Volpes, Pauls, and other such ASPD-afflicted ilk operating with impunity in the US.
The only people worried are multinational corporations seeking to enter and unfairly exploit the population, and need to sucker the gullible, and the war-worshiping baggers into supporting using the military as a free mercenary service to facilitate their private agenda.
Secondly, being "Islamist" is no different from being "Christian", both Abrahamic religions (along with the Hebrew religion) spring from the Semitic peoples of the Middle East, they have the same patriarch, and the same principles, the main differences being in some of the procedures followed to exercise their belief, and for the youngest, the deification of one of the prophets.
I am very suspicious re the motivation of the author and publisher of this article to continue to try to propagandize against, and thus promote prejudice against one religion as something to be feared, rather than to recognize that all religions have adherents (or so they claim) who act contrary to their claimed religion, all three Abrahamic religions having been soaked in blood throughout their histories, and to date.