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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Syria's Nusra Front eclipsed by Iraq-based al-Qaida |
| 2013-05-17 |
| The most feared and effective rebel group battling President Bashar Assad, the Islamist Nusra Front, is being eclipsed by a more radical jihadi force whose aims go far beyond overthrowing the Syrian leader. Al-Qaida's Iraq-based wing, which nurtured Nusra in the early stages of the rebellion against Assad, has moved in and sidelined the organization, Nusra sources and other rebels say. Al-Qaida in Iraq includes thousands of foreign fighters whose ultimate goal is not toppling Assad but the anti-Western jihad of al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri - a shift which could extend Syria's conflict well beyond any political accord between Assad and his foes. The fighting has already cost 90,000 lives. The break-up of an important part of Syria's opposition, already splintered into hundreds of armed groups, worsens the dilemma faced by the West as it debates whether intervention to support the rebels will result in arms being placed in the hands of hostile Islamist militants. And if the West were to intervene, it may now be under pressure to attack al-Qaida opposition forces rather than Assad. "Nusra is now two Nusras. One that is pursuing al-Qaida's agenda of a greater Islamic nation, and another that is Syrian with a national agenda to help us fight Assad," said a senior rebel commander in Syria who has close ties to the Nusra Front. "It is disintegrating from within." |
| Posted by:tipper |