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Is John Kerry Right? Are the Freemen of Syria and Army of Islam Radical
Terrorists?
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/john_kerry_right_freemen_of_syria_army_i
slam_radical_terrorists_20160713/
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Posted on Jul 13, 2016
By Juan Cole
This post originally ran on Truthdig contributor Juan Cole's
website(http://www.juancole.com/2016/07/freemen-radical-terrorists.html) .
Josh Rogin of the Washington
Post(https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/kerry-touts-the
-russian-line-on-syrian-rebel-groups/2016/07/11/e7ba7dcc-4798-11e6-90a8-fb84
201e0645_story.html) caused a stir by noticing something Secretary of State
John Kerry said at Aspen last month. Kerry slammed Syrian al-Qaeda (Nusra
Front) and Daesh (ISIS, ISIL), then said:
"There are a couple of subgroups underneath the two designated - Daesh and
Jabhat al-Nusra - Jaysh al-Islam, Ahrar al-Sham particularly - who brush off
and fight with that - alongside these other two sometimes to fight the Assad
regime ..."
In his opinion piece, Rogin characterizes what Kerry said as a gaffe that
yielded to the Russian position that all rebels against the al-Assad regime
in Syria are terrorists. Rogin also defended Ahrar al-Sham (Freemen of
Syria) as not an al-Qaeda affiliate or in the line of command of al-Qaeda,
though he admitted that it is Salafi and wants a radical Muslim
dictatorship.
I'm not sure why the State Department officials who anonymously blasted
Kerry think that Freemen of Syria are good guys just because they aren't
al-Qaeda.
And the fact is that they are in fact in a formal political and military
coalition with
al-Qaeda(http://www.juancole.com/2015/07/washington-syrias-taliban.html) ,
i.e., they are playing Mulla Omar and the Taliban to al-Qaeda's Ayman
al-Zawahiri (the 9/11 mastermind to whom the Syrian Nusra Front reports).
I wrote some time
ago(http://www.juancole.com/2015/07/washington-syrias-taliban.html) :
"The Free Men are closely allied with the open al-Qaeda affiliate, the
Support Front (Jabhat al-Nusra). This is not a mere alliance of convenience.
They have formed joint operation offices. They coordinate closely
militarily. They have a common rubric in Idlib Province of the Army of
Conquest (Jaysh al-Fath).
When the two groups of holy warriors and their allies took over the city of
Idlib . . . they conquered 18 villages north of that city largely inhabited
by members of the esoteric Shiite Druze religion. The Free Men leadership
gave control of the Druze villages to al-Qaeda, which promptly began
stealing their property and killing them when they objected. Some 23 were
massacred.
Note that the Free Men did not have to give the Druze in Idlib Province to
al-Qaeda. They could have administered that territory themselves. That they
thought al-Qaeda a suitable overlord for a group viewed by hard line Salafis
as unbelievers and idolators shows that they just don't care about human
rights. They want a Salafi , Taliban-style Islamic state. We know exactly
what happened to Shiite Hazara under the Taliban in Afghanistan. They were
massacred.
If the Free Men are so moderate, they would renounce their close alliance
with al-Qaeda and stop coddling the terrorists, who report directly to Ayman
al-Zawahiri, a mastermind of the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001.
That this intertwining of the Free Men with al-Qaeda is all right with the
Washington Post is just baffling.
Me, I'd say a formal political and battlefield ally of al-Qaeda is pretty
sketchy and just the sort of sub-group to which Kerry referred. Why would
the US want to protect a group that differs in no respect from Afghanistan's
Taliban and wants to turn Syria into a dictatorial Salafi society? What
would happen to Syrian Christians, Druze, Alawis and leftist Kurds under a
Freemen government?
As for the Saudi-backed Army of Islam (Jaysh al-Islam), it is less
politically tied to al-Qaeda but it is a frequent battlefield
ally(https://www.thenation.com/article/why-is-washington-supporting-fundamen
talist-jihadis-in-syria/) , just as Kerry said.
Josh Wood at the UAE's The
National(http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/why-jaish-al-islam-and-
ahrar-al-sham-are-at-the-heart-of-geneva-squabbles) pointed out last winter
that Russia and Syria are not the only ones worried about the Army of Islam
and the Freemen of Syria:
"While the groups both oppose ISIL, they are allies of Al Qaeda's Syrian
affiliate Jabhat Al Nusra and their behaviours during the war have been seen
as tinged with extremist tendencies. Jaish Al Islam's former leader Zahran
Alloush spoke of Alawites and Shiites in derogatory terms and at times
advocated that they be cleansed from parts of Syria. Last autumn, the group
paraded captured Alawite civilians and soldiers through Damascus' suburbs in
cages, allegedly planning to use them as human shields against government
air strikes. The group also does not shy away from gory displays of
violence.
Nice.
So what Kerry said was not inaccurate and it did not give away anything to
the Russians. But it probably did anger Saudi Arabia and Turkey, who
apparently roped the CIA into this business of allying with the Salafi
Jihadis.
Really? In 2016, elements of the US government want to repeat the mistakes
of the 1980s(http://www.juancole.com/2015/09/years-israel-tempted.html)
that in many ways led to the September 11 attacks? You don't build up Salafi
Jihadis and help them take over a country. They don't believe in democracy,
they hate minorities, and deep down inside they despise and want to harm the
United States, even if they are willing to ally with it tactically to get
what they want. After they have gotten it, that is when they start dreaming
about taking down towers.
And by the way, that Israeli flirtation with al-Qaeda in the Golan Heights
should have brought enormous US pressure to cut it out.
It is al-Qaeda for God's sake.
So, in this instance both Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
are right. A resolution of the Syrian civil war cannot come as long as the
strongest groups are terrorists. It is true that the regime is also a state
terrorist on a massive level. That is why it has provoked a tremendous
revolution against itself. But these anti-democratic radical religious
groups just give the alternative to the regime a bad name.
Or at least they would if journalists would do their homework and think
straight.
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