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Anas Abdelrahim wrote: ' The presence of "Islamist Jihadists" in Syria was reported as early as last year by Aljazeera reporter who later resigned because the channel refused to air photos documenting a clash between the army and an armed group along the Lebanese-Syrian border... I also happen to be in touch with a Syrian friend whose emails corroborate the fact that such groups exist in Syria.' I'm not denying the presence of jihadists in Syria, and I've been pointing this out for quite some time. What concerns me is that, on the one hand, some people on the left view the opposition to Assad as a conspiracy by Saudi Arabia and the imperialist powers, using non-Syrian jihadists to stir up a population that is broadly supportive of the Syrian regime, whilst, on the other, other left-wingers are blithely unconcerned about the presence and activities of jihadists in Syria and their effects upon the opposition to the regime in trying to turn what I consider to have been a democratic quest into a sectarian quagmire similar to what we've seen in Iraq. Returning to Robert Fisk's report, I read it when it first appeared, and it seemed to me that the regime had carefully arranged the prison visit in order to present him with prisoners who were genuine jihadists with the intention of giving the impression that the opposition to the regime is the work of religious sectarians, and largely non-Syrian ones to boot. The question immediately arises -- well, it did to me -- how representative of the prisoners taken by the regime were these jihadists? Fisk does not ask this question. Paul F ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
