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On 5/6/13 9:26 AM, Dan Weiner wrote:
All right, comrades and friends.
Now explain something to me:
I have been very confused about the Syria business.
The one thing that makes me worried about the Syrian rebels is how much it
looks like the press in the West is supporting them.
This is not true at all. The NY Times has run numerous articles about
"jihadists" in Syria. Compared to the coverage on Yugoslavia, the
paper's editorial stance has been very cool to intervention. This piece
is typical, even as it is false:
NY Times April 9, 2013
Iraq’s Branch of Al Qaeda Merges With Syria Jihadists
By HANIA MOURTADA and RICK GLADSTONE
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Iraq’s branch of Al Qaeda said Tuesday that it had
merged with the Nusra Front, a group of jihadists fighting to topple
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, in a marriage that appeared to
strengthen the role of Islamic militants in the Syrian insurgency and
further complicate Western assistance efforts.
The United States has already blacklisted the Nusra Front over evidence
of its links with the Islamic State of Iraq, the Qaeda branch. But the
news of the merger, made by the branch’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,
in an audio statement posted on jihadist Web sites, was the first time
he had announced that they were a single organization.
“The time has come for us to announce to the people of the Levant and to
the whole world that Al Nusra Front is merely an extension of the
Islamic State of Iraq and a part of it,” Mr. Baghdadi said. He also said
the combined group would be called the Islamic State in Iraq and the
Levant and would dedicate half its budget to the Syrian insurgency.
In a warning to other Syrian fighters who want Mr. Assad to go but do
not share Mr. Baghdadi’s views, he said, “Don’t make democracy a price
for those thousands among you who have been killed.”
The warning was quickly rejected by the Free Syrian Army, the rebels’
main fighting organization, which has sought to distance itself from the
jihadist groups. “No one has the right to impose any form of state on
Syrians,” said Louay Mekdad, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army.
“Syrians will go to the polls to choose their leaders and form their own
state.”
Mr. Baghdadi’s announcement came as a backlash appeared to be spreading
in Syria over the indiscriminate civilian killings believed to be
carried out by jihadist groups, including the Nusra Front, aimed at
further weakening Mr. Assad’s power in the two-year-old conflict. These
groups have fearsome fighters but do not take orders from the Free
Syrian Army, which has criticized attacks on civilians including a
recent spree of deadly car bombings.
The jihadist merger also comes as Secretary of State John Kerry hinted
during a trip to the Middle East and Europe that the United States was
preparing to step up its assistance to the Syrian rebel cause.
While the United States and other Western nations have backed the Free
Syrian Army and contributed nonlethal aid to its combatants, American
officials have been reluctant to supply weapons, particularly because of
concerns that they could fall into the hands of the Nusra Front or
affiliates loyal to Al Qaeda. Differences in the degree of Western
commitment to the insurgency have been a source of frustration to the
Syrian political opposition.
The opposition movement also has struggled with its own divisions over
rebel behavior. On Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an
anti-Assad group based in Britain, accused a rogue insurgent battalion
operating in Aleppo of arresting, torturing and extorting dozens of
residents, mostly between the ages of 18 and 20.
“The Syrian Observatory demands that this battalion stop engaging in
these practices immediately, as such behavior does not represent the
values of the revolution,” said the group, whose information network
inside Syria has emerged as a major source of insurgency news. “On the
contrary, they are an extension of the oppressive and brutal methods
practiced by the Syrian security apparatus.”
In Geneva, the United Nations refugee agency said Tuesday that the pace
at which families are fleeing the destruction in Syria threatens to
double or even triple the number of total refugees seeking shelter in
neighboring countries by the end of the year. The agency also renewed an
urgent appeal for money to deal with the crisis.
“The numbers look horrendous,” Panos Moumtzis, the refugee agency’s
regional coordinator for Syrian refugees, told reporters.
A year ago, the number of Syrian refugees stood at 30,000, and the
figure now exceeds 1.3 million, he said. With 200,000 people fleeing
across Syria’s borders every month and no political solution in sight,
humanitarian agencies fear that they will be trying to support up to
three million refugees by the end of the year, Mr. Moumtzis said.
Hania Mourtada reported from Beirut, and Rick Gladstone from New York.
Nick Cumming-Bruce contributed reporting from Geneva.
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