US Dilemma in Syria: Moderate Stronghold Falls to al-Qaeda, Fighters desert to Extremists

[marmar]

By Juan Cole

In a big setback for the Obama administration’s Syria policy, the al-Qaeda affiliate Succor Front (Jabhat al-Nusra) took the town of Deir Sunbul and its environs this weekend away from the Syria Revolutionaries Front, a relatively secular-minded group viewed as “moderates” by the United States. Deir Sunbul lies in the Jabal al-Zawiya region of the northwestern province of Idlib. The pan-Arab London daily al-Quds al-Arabi (Arab Jerusalem) says that the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus is rubbing its hands with glee at the prospect of the rebels fighting one another to exhaustion.

Not only did Syria Revolutionaries Front leader Jamal Marouf have to flee his hometown, but some of his fighters actually turned on him and joined the Succor Front.

The Succor Front launched its attack with an armored convoy coming from the eastern desert and deployed tanks and armored vehicles against Deir Sunbul’s pitiful little machine gun batteries. This operation raises the question of why the US did not bomb the convoy.

Jamal Marouf pledged to return to the region of Jabal al-Zawiya. The Succor Front/ Nusra directed a broadside at him, on hearing of this intention, saying: “Jamal, you were a revolutionary fighter. But you deviated from that path and entered the wastelands of politics and were tempted by money and arms. Today you consider us infidels and you accuse us of being agents and being foreigners. The holy warriors of the Succor Front who battle you, however, are in fact the inhabitants of Jabal Zawiya, and they fight in the ranks of the brigades and the people there. It is not the Succor Front alone that fights you.” .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.juancole.com/2014/11/moderate-stronghold-extremists.html