http://www.smh.com.au/world/jihadists-push-for-role-in-syrian-resistance-20120730-239z4.html Jihadists push for role in Syrian resistance Date, July 31, 2012 Neil Macfarquhar, Hwaida Saad Resistance ... members of the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo. Photo: Reuters
BEIRUT: As the uprising against Bashar al-Assad's government grinds on, Syrians involved in the struggle say it is becoming more radicalised. Homegrown jihadists, as well as small groups of fighters from al-Qaeda, are taking a more prominent role and demanding a say in running the resistance. The past few months have been marked by the emergence of larger, more organised and better-armed Syrian militant organisations pushing an agenda based on jihad, the concept they have a divine mandate to fight. Even less-zealous groups are adopting an Islamic aura because it attracts more financing. Idlib province in the north, where resistance fighters control the most territory, is the prime example. In one case, after jihadists fighting under the black banner of the Prophet Muhammad staged attacks against government targets, the commander of a local rebel military council invited them to join. ''They are everywhere in Idlib,'' said a commander with the Free Syrian Army council in Saraqib. ''They are becoming stronger so we didn't want any hostility or tension in our area.'' Advertisement It came anyway. The groups demanded to raise the prophet's banner - solid black with ''There is no god but God'' written in Arabic - during the weekly Friday demonstration. Saraqib prides itself in its newly democratic ways and residents put it to a vote - the answer was no. The jihadi fighters raised the flag anyway, until a compromise allowed for a 20-minute display. In one sense, the changes on the ground have brought closer to reality the Syrian government's early, and easily dismissible, claim that the opposition was being driven by jihadists financed from abroad. A central reason cited by the Obama administration for limiting its support for the resistance to items such as communications equipment is that the US did not want arms flowing to Islamic radicals. But the flip side is Salafist groups, or Muslim puritans, now receive most foreign financing. ''A lot of the jihadi discourse has to do with funding,'' said Peter Harling, a Syria analyst with International Crisis Group. ''You have secular people and very moderate Islamists who join Salafi groups because they have the weapons and the money. There tends to be more Salafi guys in the way the groups portray themselves than in the groups on the ground.'' But jihad has become a distinctive rallying cry. The commander of the newly unified brigades of the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo was shown in a YouTube video on Sunday exhorting new men joining the rebellion with: ''Those whose intentions are not for God, they had better stay home, whereas if your intention is for God, then you go for jihad and you gain an afterlife and heaven.'' Fighters, activists and analysts say jihadi groups are emerging now for several reasons. They generally stand apart from the Free Syrian Army, the loose national coalition of local militias made up of army defectors and civilians. Significantly, most of the money flowing to the Syrian opposition is coming from religious donors in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and elsewhere in the Gulf, whose generosity hinges on Salafi teaching. Further, as the sectarian flavour of the uprising deepened, pitting the majority Sunni Muslims against the ruling minority, the Alawites, it attracted fighters lured by a larger Muslim cause. Alawites, the President's sect, dominate Syria but many orthodox Muslims view them as a heretical offshoot of Shiite Islam. Abu Zein, a spokesman for Sukur al-Sham, one of the most prominent emerging homegrown groups, said the organisation included Syrians plus other Arabs, French and Belgians. ''The Qaeda ideology existed previously but it was suppressed by the regime,'' he said in a Skype interview. ''But after the uprising they found very fertile ground, plus the funders to support their existence.'' The New York Times Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/jihadists-push-for-role-in-syrian-resistance-20120730-239z4.html#ixzz2286gyOCC [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Post message: [email protected] Subscribe : [email protected] Unsubscribe : [email protected] List owner : [email protected] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
