U.S. Weighing Closer Ties With Hardline Islamists in Syria

cyberhog

...the United States is increasingly looking to hardline Islamists in its efforts to gain leverage in Syria's civil war.

On Monday, the State Department confirmed its openness to engaging with the Islamic Front following the group's seizure of a Free Syrian Army headquarters last week containing U.S.-supplied small arms and food. "We wouldn't rule out the possibility of meeting with the Islamic Front," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Monday. "We can engage with the Islamic Front, of course, because they're not designated terrorists ... We're always open to meeting with a wide range of opposition groups. Obviously, it may make sense to do so at some point soon, and if we have something to announce, we will."

...Zahran Alloush, the Islamic Front's military chief, has demonized Syria's Alawite minority and called for them to be cleansed from Damascus. As he put it in a recent video: "The jihadists will wash the filth of the rafida [a slur used to describe Shia] from Greater Syria, they will wash it forever, if Allah wills it."

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/16/us_weighing_closer_ties_with_hardline_islamists_in_syria


How can the US even think of engaging with a group that wants to "cleanse" the Alawite minority from Syria? Has Obama completely lost his mind?

Even though the Islamic Front are not "designated terrorists" they are every bit as evil as their accomplices.

Fundamentalists massacre 15 Alawite and Druze civilians in Syria

The Saudi-sponsored fundamentalist Islamic Front and Jabhat al-Nusra killed 15 civilians from Syria’s Alawite and Druze minorities in the central city of Adra, 20 kilometres northeast of Damascus, official and opposition sources reported yesterday

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/fundamentalists-massacre-15-alawite-and-druze-civilians-in-syria-1.1625999

Also The Islamic Front manifesto pledges to help the ultraextremist ISIS fighters with "their jihad' and says those fighters should be treated well.

In outlining its stance on the thousands of hard-core jihadists in the ranks of the rebels, the Islamic Front document uses the term “muhajirin,” which in this sense means non-Syrian fighters, who are widely believed to be more prevalent in the ranks of ISIS than Nusra.

The front favors good treatment of the non-Syrians and pledges to aid “their jihad,”

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Analysis/2013/Nov-30/239421-the-seven-sisters-of-syrias-newest-rebel-alliance.ashx


That the US is now considering engaging with hardline anti-democracy rebels ia a clear sign that the West's obession with removing Assad is getting out of hand.

MonaPizza

cyberhog wrote: »

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/16/us_weighing_closer_ties_with_hardline_islamists_in_syria


How can the US even think of engaging with a group that wants to "cleanse" the Alawite minority from Syria? Has Obama completely lost his mind?

Even though the Islamic Front are not "designated terrorists" they are every bit as evil as their accomplices.



http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/fundamentalists-massacre-15-alawite-and-druze-civilians-in-syria-1.1625999

Also The Islamic Front manifesto pledges to help the ultraextremist ISIS fighters with "their jihad' and says those fighters should be treated well.




http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Analysis/2013/Nov-30/239421-the-seven-sisters-of-syrias-newest-rebel-alliance.ashx


That the US is now considering engaging with hardline anti-democracy rebels ia a clear sign that the West's obession with removing Assad is getting out of hand.

Are you deaf?

The FSA was dreamt up in London in 2010. The overthrow of the Assad government was plotted in 1997/8.
The idiots who tried to storm Damascus, while CNN, faked gas attacks on civvies was, and is, laughable.
The US, Britain and France who blab about Western values, freedom and other crap have been arming these clowns in Syria for 7 years and when these dopes get whacked by Assad and his loyal army AND 80% of the Syrian people who happen to love their country and the peace they enjoy, and we see on absolute arsehole channel reports about Assad gassing children, yet no evidence is available and in fact one is not allowed to even investigate.....fcuk me.


So Turkey has now turned their back on the mess on their border that they helped facilitate. Their efforts to sneak back into the Levant are quite frankly nauseating. America, who couldn't find his/her rectum with both hands and a map are wondering why it all went wrong and why Egypt is now opening her legs to Russia. Qatar, flapping around around, wondering "will we hold on?", and the Saudis, always willing to stick around and back a winner are now trying to shore up the whole Syrian fcukup because they thought they backed a winner. And still....just loud-mouthed complaining from the wrinkle-faced, red-eyed assholes in Tel-Aviv yapping about a country that hasn't hurt anyone on 300 years. And they have enough nuclear bombs to blow a hole in the planet and also boil enough Arab skin, bone and blood to create a new shrine.

And all the while, all the while, farmers in Canada, or nurses in Tokyo, or teachers in Scotland, or architects in Helsinki, or fishermen in New Zealand, or authors in Santiago or painters in Nairobi or chefs in Sri Lanka could not give a FLYING FCUK about the crap that you're trying to sell.

(fcukit) ....RANT over!

Well not just yet.....

Libya is now a complete slaughterhouse. It seemed to be just fine a couple of years ago (and before anyone says Ghadaffi was Hitler in the desert, I would ask...were you there? Do you know anyone who lived in this land? Do you know anyone who pleaded with the outside world to come in and destroy the place just so Muammar could be gone?).

Saddam Hussein is now gone. Under his rule, Iraq had the most advanced medical university programs in the ENTIRE Middle East. The largest percentage of female doctors ans scientists (so much for the Burkha and the hands off approach to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait by the bullsh!tters in Washington and Whitehall, where women can't even drive or go out without a relative).

Ah well, now that the richest and most progressive country in Africa has been shattered, now that their natural oil wealth has been taken back from them and given to it's rightful owners, i.e. France, and England, then who gives a fcuk!

Jonny7

The US is engaging these groups to open channels of communication and also get them to be a part of the peace process - talks due next month

The groups (ISIS, ISIL) represent the dominant opposition force in Syria now and must be dealt with

Most nations do not want an Afghanistan in the region, least of all the US/Israel

South Korea has talks with North Korea - it doesn't mean they support totalitarianism

Jonny7

MonaPizza wrote: »

Saddam Hussein is now gone. Under his rule, Iraq had the most advanced medical university programs in the ENTIRE Middle East.

Other posters should take note of this

Seaneh

Jonny7 wrote: »

Other posters should take note of this

WOW, a good medical programme in university.

That definitely makes up for the almost total destruction of their national infrastructure, destroying of their towns and cities and death of 1million people ad a direct result of the 2003 invasion.

I bet they are super thankful for being liberated with all those lovely bombs and having their freedom granted by hundreds of tons of depleted uranium shells.


Lucky guys those Iraqis, if it's wasn't for Team America: World Police and their sidekicks lapdogs the British the Iraqi's would be royally screwed!

Jonny7

Seaneh wrote: »

WOW, a good medical programme in university.

Missed my point.

Even when marching against that war, don't think I ever heard praise for Saddam

Likewise debate on Syria seems equally skewed for the same reasons

MonaPizza

Jonny7 wrote: »

Missed my point.

Even when marching against that war, don't think I ever heard praise for Saddam

Likewise debate on Syria seems equally skewed for the same reasons

Don't be glib, Jonny.

There are still arseholes out there who claim "the world is better off without Saddam"..... well it isn't. And that's a fact. Because I think the world would be better off with the 1.5 million Iraqis alive who are now dead, the 4 million who are now refugees and the 1 in 4 Iraqi children who are now orphans.

Figures for cripples, horrifically maimed, traumatised, etc I don't have and figures for abominable birth defects as a result of American chemical weapons I don't have either. Figures for Iraqi women who are terrified of getting pregnant for fear of delivering some hideous deformed monstrosity I don't have either. But seeing as Saddam was willing to quit the country and this was communicated to Washington via the Swiss Embassy days before the rape and destruction of Iraq AND rejected means that the scum who perpetrated this holocaust and those who still cheer for it are not do really give a fcuk and are trying to ignore the horror they visited on a land and a people who never once hurt them. Kinda like the Vietnamese, I guess.