#syrian islamists

[ambient-entropy]

[newstfionline]

Private Donors' Funds Add Wild Card to War in Syria

By Ben Hubbard, NY Times, November 12, 2013

AL SUBAYHIYAH, Kuwait--The money flows in via bank transfer or is delivered in bags or pockets bulging with cash. Working from his sparely furnished sitting room here, Ghanim al-Mteiri gathers the funds and transports them to Syria for the rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad.

Mr. Mteiri--one of dozens of Kuwaitis who openly raise money to arm the opposition--has helped turn this tiny, oil-rich Persian Gulf state into a virtual Western Union outlet for Syria's rebels, with the bulk of the funds he collects going to a Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda.

One Kuwait-based effort raised money to equip 12,000 rebel fighters for $2,500 each. Another campaign, run by a Saudi sheikh based in Syria and close to Al Qaeda, is called "Wage Jihad With Your Money." Donors earn "silver status" by giving $175 for 50 sniper bullets, or "gold status" by giving twice as much for eight mortar rounds.

"Once upon a time we cooperated with the Americans in Iraq," said Mr. Mteiri, a former soldier in the Kuwaiti Army, recalling the American role in pushing Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991. "Now we want to get Bashar out of Syria, so why not cooperate with Al Qaeda?"

Outside support for the warring parties in Syria has helped sustain the conflict and transformed it into a proxy battle by regional powers, with Russia, Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah helping the government and with Saudi Arabia and Qatar providing the main support for the rebels.

But the flow of private funds to rebel groups has added a wild-card factor to the war, analysts say, exacerbating divisions in the opposition and bolstering its most extreme elements. While the West has been hesitant to arm and finance the more secular forces that initially led the turn to armed rebellion, fighters have flocked to Islamist militias and in some cases rebranded themselves as jihadist because that is where the money is.

"It creates a self-sustaining dynamic that is totally independent of all the strategic and diplomatic games that are happening and being led by states," said Emile Hokayem, an analyst in the Middle East with the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Most private donors shun the Western-backed Supreme Military Council, undermining a body meant to unify the rebels into a moderate force. And they dismiss the opposition's political leadership as well as calls by the United States and other powers for peace talks. With funds estimated to be at least in the tens of millions of dollars, they have contributed to the effective partition of Syria, building up independent Islamist militias that control territory while espousing radical ideology, including the creation of an Islamic state.

Rebel fund-raisers have relied heavily on social media. Some have hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter, where they spread posts calling for donations, announcing drop-off points and listing phone numbers where operators are standing by.

Prominent fund-raisers often boast of attacks by their preferred groups, which thank them with videos showing their new weapons.

The campaigners say they are merely helping the oppressed.

Some fund-raisers and donors have amplified the conflict's sectarian overtones, calling for revenge against Shiites and Alawites, the sect of Mr. Assad.

"Among the beautiful things inside Syria is that the mujahedeen have realized that they need to deeply hit the Alawites, in the same way they kill our wives and children," Sheikh Shafi al-Ajmi, a prominent Kuwaiti fund-raiser, told an interviewer this year.

The sheikh declined to comment. But in an interview, his brother, Mohammed al-Ajmi, said that their group funded operations rooms for military campaigns and that the Nusra Front, a Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda, was free to work with them. He denied that fighters funded by his group had killed civilians.

[newstfionline]

Syrian rebel groups break with exiled opposition

By Zeina Karam, AP, Sep 25, 2013

BEIRUT (AP)--Nearly a dozen of Syria's powerful rebel factions, including one linked to al-Qaida, formally broke with the main opposition group in exile Wednesday and called for Islamic law in the country, dealing a severe blow to the Western-backed coalition.

The new alliance is a potential turning point, entrenching the schism within the rebellion and giving President Bashar Assad fuel for his long-stated contention that his regime is battling Islamic extremists in the civil war.

The Turkey-based Syrian National Coalition--the political arm of the Free Syrian Army rebel group--has long been accused by those fighting inside Syria of being a puppet promoted by the West and Gulf Arab states supporting the Syrian rebellion.

Wednesday's public rejection of the coalition's authority will likely be extremely damaging for its future in Syria, particularly at a time when the U.S. and Russia are pushing for peace talks.

"If the groups involved stand by this statement, I think this could be a very big deal--especially if it develops into a more-structured alliance instead of just a joint position," said political analyst Aron Lund.

"It basically means that some of the biggest mainstream Islamist forces within the so-called FSA are breaking up with the political leadership appointed for them by the West and Gulf states, to cast their lot with more hard-line and anti-Western Islamists," he said.

The announcement came less than two weeks after the coalition elected an interim prime minister, Ahmad Touma, charging him with organizing governance in opposition-held territories that have descended into chaos and infighting.

In a joint statement, 11 rebel groups that are influential in Aleppo province in the north, including Jabhat al-Nusra, which is listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, said they rejected the authority of the Syrian National Coalition as well as Touma's appointment.

A video on the Internet showed Abdel-Aziz Salameh, political chief of the Liwaa al-Tawheed brigade that is particularly strong in the northern city of Aleppo, reading the statement.

Ominously, the rebel groups' statement was titled "Communique No. 1," a term used in Arab countries following military coups that suggests the creation of a new leadership body.

It said the rebels do "not recognize" any future government formed outside Syria, insisting that forces fighting inside the country should be represented by "those who suffered and took part in the sacrifices."

The statement highlighted the growing irrelevance of the coalition and its military arm headed by Gen. Salim Idris, who leads the Supreme Military Council supported by the West, amid increasing radicalization in Syria. The group is seen by many as being out of touch.

Veteran opposition figure Kamal Labwani, a member of the coalition, said the U.S. decision to back away from military intervention in retaliation to the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack near Damascus and the perceived Western indifference to Syrian suffering was turning fighters in Syria into "monsters."

Najib Ghadbian, the Syrian National Coalition's U.N. representative, acknowledged in an interview with AP Television News that there was a "growing rift" between the mainstream FSA and extremist groups. He said Idris had cut short a trip to Paris to deal with the rebel announcement.

The U.S. decision had created "a lot of frustration," he added.

"The longer we wait, the more ... difficult it is going to become," Ghadbian said in New York. "Nothing is going to be, in fact, left to save of Syria."

For many rebels, the realization that even a chemical weapons attack would not trigger military intervention by the West has led to more radicalization. Last week, al-Qaida militants expelled FSA fighters from a town near the Turkish border after some of the worst clashes between the two sides. An al-Qaida commander in the north was assassinated by FSA fighters a day later.

The opposition has long been hobbled by divisions between those in exile and the disparate rebel groups fighting Assad's regime in Syria's civil war, which has killed over 100,000 since March 2011.

The insurgency has increasingly drawn jihadis from all over the world, further adding to the West's reluctance to get militarily involved in the Syrian conflict or send advanced weapons to the rebels. There is growing concern among moderates that the dominant role the extremists are playing is discrediting the rebellion.

[msnnews]

U.S. photographer escapes Syrian Islamist torturers

Matthew Schrier escaped from Syrian Islamists who seized him in December, tortured him and were still holding an American cellmate near Aleppo, the freelancer told the New York Times.

See the complete story.