"One US-Backed Rebel Group Cooperates With Al Qaeda in Syria"

[Comrade Grumpy]

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304431104579547183675484314

This is from the Wall Street Journal:

ISTANBUL—A U.S.-backed opposition faction is cooperating with an al Qaeda-linked rebel group to battle the Syrian regime as the opposition chief prepares to meet with officials in Washington to lobby for weapons, in part to fight al Qaeda.

The U.S. supports the moderate and secular-leaning Free Syrian Army. But Washington refuses to supply the rebel group with sophisticated weaponry for fear those arms will fall into the hands of al Qaeda-linked extremists fighting the regime alongside the FSA and myriad other factions in the civil war.

The president of Syria's main political opposition group, Ahmed Jarba, is in Washington this week and slated to meet President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry. He has been trying to assure the administration that the FSA is best placed to fight al Qaeda rebels on the ground in Syria.

While word of the cooperation between the FSA and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front came from within the Western-backed group, a member of Mr. Jarba's delegation in Washington denied it. The conflicting claims were an embarrassing sign of disarray within the group just as it was trying to lobby Washington. The Syrian Revolutionaries Front, part of the FSA, joined up with the Nusra Front in the past few weeks to capture strategic hilltops from the regime in southwestern Quneitra province overlooking the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, according to two representatives of the Western-backed rebels who are with the fighters.

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These guys, who form tactical alliances with Al Qaeda affiliates, want us to give them surface-to-air missiles. What could possibly go wrong?

With the fall of Homs, the "Syrian revolution" is over. It has been strategically defeated. Now, all that's left for the rebels and jihadists and their supporters is to bleed Syria even further without a chance of victory. I don't think we should be involved in that.

[Blue_Tires]

1. Which is why I never believed in the philosophy of

strange bedfellows, unholy alliances, or "The enemy of my enemy is my friend..."

Especially in a place like the Middle East where the line between enemy and friend is very hazy....

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. Nobody gives a shit? Maybe if Will Smith's daughter was involved...?