How al-Qaeda Changed the Syrian War by Sarah Birke. Talk to any Syrian you meet on the Syrian-Turkish border these days, and in less than five minutes the conversation is likely to turn to Da’ash—the Arabic acronym for the rebel organization known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria, or ISIS. Linked to al-Qaeda, the fearsome group has swept across northern Syria, imposing sharia law, detaining and even beheading Syrians who don’t conform to its purist vision of Islam, and waging war on rival militias.
In early December, the group killed a foreign journalist, Iraqi cameraman Yasser Faisal al-Joumali, who was reporting in northern Syria. Even using the word Da’ash—seen as derogatory by the group’s members—is punishable by eighty lashes, a twenty-three-year-old wounded fighter from a rival Islamist group told me from his bed in a Syrian-run makeshift clinic in Turkey. Since its appearance last April, ISIS has changed the course of the Syrian war. It has forced the mainstream Syrian opposition to fight on two fronts. Syrie: des jihadistes d'Al-Qaïda chassés. Tensions increase within Syria rebel ranks - Middle East.
The Free Syrian Army (FSA) and al-Qaeda-linked fighters have clashed again, just days after a leader of the FSA was shot dead at a checkpoint after a row between fighters from the two groups.
Activists told Al Jazeera that the FSA and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on Saturday fought for control of a strategic checkpoint in Aleppo city's Bustan al-Qasr district, a strategic gateway between rebel and government controlled territory. Some members of the groups now fear that tensions will escalate, hampering rebel efforts to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. Free Syrian Army commander says al Qaeda is 'welcome'
Trois attentats suicides meurtriers à Damas. Deux personnes ont été tuées et plusieurs blessées, dimanche 23 juin, par l'explosion d'une bombe dans le quartier de Mazzé 86, dans l'ouest de Damas, rapporte l'Observatoire syrien des droits de l'homme (OSDH).
Ce quartier est habité par des alaouites, une branche du chiisme à laquelle appartient le clan du président Bachar Al-Assad. La télévision officielle a parlé d'"une explosion terroriste près d'une station de minibus qui a fait des victimes parmi les civils". Le régime assimile l'opposition armée à des "terroristes".
Plus tôt dans la journée, deux autres attaques avaient été commises dans les quartiers de Roukneddine et Bab Moussala à Damas, faisant au moins huit morts, selon l'OSDH. Un jeune Syrien exécuté par des rebelles pour blasphème. Un adolescent syrien de 15 ans a été exécuté en public, dimanche 9 juin, à Alep, par des rebelles islamistes qui l'accusaient d'avoir tenu des propos jugés blasphématoires, a révélé l'Observatoire syrien des droits de l'homme (OSDH), une organisation proche de l'opposition basée en Grande-Bretagne.
Mohammed Qataa vendait du café dans les rues du quartier populaire de Chaar. Il s'est disputé avec un individu avant de lancer : "Même si le prophète Mahomet descend du paradis, je ne deviendrai pas croyant. " Des membres de l'ex-Front Al-Nosra – qui a fait allégeance en mai à la branche irakienne d'Al-Qaida, sous le nom d'Etat islamique d'Irak et de Syrie – l'ont arrêté samedi, puis reconduit encore vivant dimanche aux premières heures sur son étal en bois, son corps portant des marques visibles de coups de fouet. "L'Observatoire ne peut ignorer ces crimes, qui ne font que servir les ennemis de la révolution et les ennemis de l'humanité", a déclaré le directeur de l'OSDH, Rami Abdelrahman. Syria: Al-Qaeda's battle for control of Assad's chemical weapons plant - Telegraph - Pale Moon.
Syria group 'pledges allegiance' to al-Qaeda - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - Pale Moon. A man claiming to be the head of a key group fighting the Syrian government has purportedly pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, but also distanced his group from earlier claims it had merged with the Iraq branch of the armed group.
Syria: The descent into Holy War - Comment - Voices. The film is being widely watched on YouTube by Syrians, reinforcing their fears that Syria is imitating Iraq's descent into murderous warfare in the years after the US invasion in 2003. It fosters a belief among Syria's non-Sunni Muslim minorities, and Sunnis associated with the government as soldiers or civil servants, that there will be no safe future for them in Syria if the rebels win. In one version of the video, several of which are circulating, the men who are beheaded are identified as officers belonging to the 2.5 million-strong Alawite community. This is the Shia sect to which President Bashar al-Assad and core members of his regime belong. Syria: Why al-Qaeda Is Winning - Ed Husain.
Our collective excitement at the possibility that the Assad regime will be destroyed, and the Iranian ayatollahs weakened in the process, is blurring our vision and preventing us from seeing the rise of al-Qaeda in Syria.
In March of this year, jihadis mounted seven attacks against Assad. By June, they had led 66 “operations,” and over half of these were on Syria’s capital, Damascus. The Syrian opposition is benefiting hugely from the terrorist organization’s determination, discipline, combat experience, religious fervor, and ability to strike the Assad regime where it hurts most. Lawyer who defended suspected al Qaeda militants in Turkey killed in Aleppo - The Long War Journal - Pale Moon. Osman Karahan, publicly known as the lawyer defending al Qaeda members in Turkey, has been killed in Aleppo, Syria.
Turkish jihadist websites announced his "martyrdom" today, saying it had taken place three days earlier, on Aug. 3. Karahan's death was confirmed by a Turkish fighter who had gone to Syria "for the resistance," Ahmet Guzman. Karahan had defended numerous al Qaeda suspects in Turkey, most notably Loua'i Sakka, a Turkish-speaking Syrian thought to be the planner of the November 2003 truck bombings in Istanbul.
Those bombings killed some 60 people in Istanbul during twin simultaneous attacks on two synagogues, an HSBC branch, and the British Consulate. Karahan was also the Founder and President of the "Association for the Protection of Human Law (İnsan Hukukunu Koruma Derneği - İHADER)," which he claimed to have founded based on an Islamic understanding of human rights, as opposed to the concept of human rights that he said "the West dictates. " Al-Qaida has presence in Syria, says Leon Panetta - video. Al-Qaida turns tide for rebels in battle for eastern Syria. As they stood outside the commandeered government building in the town of Mohassen, it was hard to distinguish Abu Khuder's men from any other brigade in the Syrian civil war, in their combat fatigues, T-shirts and beards.
But these were not average members of the Free Syrian Army. Abu Khuder and his men fight for al-Qaida. They call themselves the ghuraba'a, or "strangers", after a famous jihadi poem celebrating Osama bin Laden's time with his followers in the Afghan mountains, and they are one of a number of jihadi organisations establishing a foothold in the east of the country now that the conflict in Syria has stretched well into its second bloody year.
They try to hide their presence. "Some people are worried about carrying the [black] flags," said Abu Khuder. According to Abu Khuder, his men are working closely with the military council that commands the Free Syrian Army brigades in the region. Abu Khuder spoke later at length. "In the beginning there were very few. Al-Qaeda's Specter in Syria - Council on Foreign Relations - Pale Moon. Share The Syrian rebels would be immeasurably weaker today without al-Qaeda in their ranks.
By and large, Free Syrian Army (FSA) battalions are tired, divided, chaotic, and ineffective. Feeling abandoned by the West, rebel forces are increasingly demoralized as they square off with the Assad regime's superior weaponry and professional army.