The Syria Analysis Thread

10 posts

Longface

The US supported the Iraqi regime against the ISIS in Iraq, while they support the ISIS in Syria, they study each case on its merits. They(the us, israel and allies)need AQ in Syria because they need conflict, they need to weaken opposition and secure Israeli control. It doesn't matter who they are supporting of the salafists, Hezbollah is the only true resistance in the Arab world, the only group that is pro-Palestine and is willing to engage in war with Israel, and they should be eliminated. Forget about Iran, the mullahs will happily shake hands with Israel if they get what they want. Any jihadist group that doesn't attack Israel is probably motivated by other reasons than securing a homeland for Muslims.

Stubby
This might surprise you, but just saying it is so doesn't make it so, you've provided no evidence for your claims about AAS and the IF being ordered by Saudi Arabia to attack 'Al Qaeda', despite the burden of truth being entirely on you. I've provided evidence to the contrary (AAS participation in Aleppos shariah court, the timeline of their org not matching your description, JN siding against ISIS), which you've failed to address. Obviously you are not interested in the truth, you're interesting in repeating your 'presentation' over and over.
Angocachi
Well Stubby,
AAS participation in a Shariah court is a far cry from establishing an Islamic State.
I don't understand how AAS founding date negates what I said. Can you explain how it does?
I agree and have long been aware of the JN vs ISIS situation. But again, I don't understand how that disproves the notion of some groups being on Saud's payroll dismantling the Islamic State in Syria.

Let me present my logic here, and perhaps less anger you can pull it apart or see that you agreed with me all along.

There is a group in Syria being paid and backed by Saud.
With said payment and backing, it is reasonable that it is doing Saud's bidding.
Said group has been fighting with Al Qaeda.
Saud is very anti-Al Qaeda and the feeling is mutual.

Do you agree with those four points?

If you do, isn't it clear that said Saud backed group is doing Saud's will in attacking Al Qaeda in Syria?

Furthermore, since said group has stated that its problem with ISIS is that it established an Islamic State, and said group hasn't established an Islamic State, that its campaign is in objection to an Islamic State. And, as said group is financed by Saud, that it represents Saud in its objection to an Islamic State.

Are you seeing what I'm seeing?
Angocachi
The US most certainly doesn't support the ISIS.

The US and Israel want AQ out of Syria. They want AQ to cease existing everywhere.

Hezbollah can attack Israel today, launch all of their rockets.
Regarding Israel, Hezbollah is interested in keeping it off the Litani. They fought the IDF until it left Shia inhabited Southern Lebanon and their only aim now is to keep it out. Their main concern today, however, is keeping Assad from falling. They need his support and Iran's. Without the the Tehran-Damascus Axis, Hezbollah will find itself guarding an enclave of Levantine Shia with their backs up against a colony of Jews.
Stubby
Exactly like I said, "no true salafi"

These are your words: "the Saudi government concocted the Islamic Front, which is now proving its true purpose... to foil the establishment of a Shariah state in Sunni inhabited Syria." The group predating AQ presence makes it impossible that they were concocting by Saudi Arabia to fight AQ. Stop playing dumb.

You said this: "I mean to say they are backed primarily, and to start solely, by Saud"

Of course we've seen that you've failed to substantiate this claim in the slightest, but I'll do ever better and rebut your empty claim. From http://eaworldview.com/2013/08/syri...portant-in-the-insurgency-and-who-funds-them/


​

You said: "However, it's Saud's money behind this Ahrar ash Sham campaign and Saud wants Al Nusra gone. In fact, if they can crush Al Nusra, they can dissolve the Islamic Front and go back to the secularist exiles and former regime Sunnis in the FSA that they were backing to start"

I've already dismantled the constituent elements of this claim, about the funding and purpose behind AAS and the IF, but it's fun to ponder how AAS can be a Saudi backed attacked on Al Nusra, when JN is siding with them against ISIS!

See the above, you've concocted the basis of this claim out of thin air, never once offering any evidence the things you say are true. The fact that the Saudi regime is anti-AQ is irrelevant.

Another claim you've backed with nothing. Where and when did 'said group' say this? Everything I've heard has been about ISIS killing, disarming, and imprisoning other rebels. I've heard nothing about an 'Islamic state'.
Longface
It supports groups who are affiliated with ISIS.

For the current circumstances, AQ's prescence is beneficial to their cause.

They're not attacking now because they can't, I don't even need to explain the reasons. But when war starts we're almost certain Hezbollah will take side against Israel. Why isn't Al Qaeda attacking Israel?

Hassan Nassrallah's main concern is not to enter an exhaustive war in Syria that will weaken him against March 14 and Israel. This is why he is refusing to increase his participation regardless of his supporters' wishes. I think that you should know that when Hezbollah was born, It split from the Amal movement, the client of the Syrian regime. Their relationship was never friendly, especially in the earlier days. In 1987, when Syrian troops entered Beirut they massacred Hezbollah fighters. Sure Nasrallah and Bashar improved relations, but the latter always pressured Hezbollah not to win parliementary seats and exercised control over them. The syrian regime rarely provides its allies with money or weapons, Hezbollah established its own sources of funding, they have been preparing for the eventuality of the regime's fall. Also if the regime falls, it won't be immediatley replaced by a centralised governmnet, which means Hezbollah won't be cut off from Syria. If the Syrian regime falls, Hezbollah might grow stronger and more independent.
Stubby

To clarify, the IF and AAS are not the same thing, the IF is only 1.5 months old. So yes, the IF is possibly a response to the success of ISIS, while AAS cannot. My apologies. In my defense, you appeared to conflate the two.

However it is AAS, Suqour al Sham, and Liwa al Tawhid who are fighting ISIS in northern Syria, all of whom predate the IF by over a year. The mixed reactions to the conflict, along with the support of JN for those fighting ISIS still contradict the narrative that this conflict is the result of a conspiracy.

Niccolo and Donkey

This is a fucking mess.

Angocachi

Saud shoots out anti-ISIS articles via its media company Al Arabiya,

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/vie...ality-within-the-Syrian-opposition--1511.html

"The most dangerous threat against the Syrian revolution is not the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). It is rather ISIL’s mentality that seeks to wreck the revolution from within.
If al-Qaeda groups managed to attack the Free Syrian Army and obstruct it from fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, then there are political activists doing the same thing and attacking the political structure of the opposition from within and seeking to destroy it.
Fighting over politics is not less damaging than the ISIL’s harm in the military field."
- says this guy [​IMG]

He's the general manager of Al Arabiya.

He also says Al Qaeda takes its orders from Iran and Assad, and that they are using the ISIL to spoil the Syrian rebellion.

"the Iranians, in cooperation with the security regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, started to manage al-Qaeda without leaving their fingerprints.
Al-Qaeda, upon Iran's orders, targeted Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United States. A number of al-Qaeda leaders moved to Iran, like Sief al-Adel, Suleiman Abu al-Ghaith and Bin Laden's sons.
Others like Nasser al-Qaraawi and Majed al-Majed also moved there. The justification for the move was that they were using Iran to serve their own aims.
The truth of the Iranians' management of al-Qaeda appears clearer in Syria today. Al-Qaeda, through its branch the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), sabotaged the Syrian revolution by assassinating its leaders and targeting its areas. The ISIL is winning Syria's war while al-Assad's forces, Hezbollah's militias and Iraqi's League of the Righteous, are failing. The ISIL succeeded at robbing people of their children and money and at the same time gaining their sympathy via its propaganda campaigns in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iraq.
For years now, we have been talking about the lie of al-Qaeda and about the falsification of the meaning of jihad, but it seems it's difficult for believers to think with their heads when they listen with their hearts. Iran managed to use these groups to target its rivals in the region, tarnish their image and pit the world against them. Iran, thanks to false jihad, has become the one governing Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and threatening the Gulf and Yemen, and has convinced the Americans that it has all the bargaining chips."
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/2014/01/07/Al-Qaeda-or-the-old-services-office.html

Angocachi
Head of Saudi religious police slams ‘extremist’ preachers for calling for Jihad in Syria. "The Syrian revolution doesn't need more fighters". Expands on "the dangers of belonging to Al Qaeda" and warns against those calling for the election of a Caliph.


The head of Saudi Arabia’s religious police Sheikh Abdulatif Al al-Sheikh criticized on Wednesday “extremist” preachers who live in luxury houses and issue statements encouraging young men to join jihad in Syria.
Those preachers “are exploiting the religious emotions of young men and are frightening their families,” Al al-Sheikh said in a press conference on Wednesday.
“They push them to jihad in order to be killed, imprisoned or humiliated while they themselves go on holidays to most beautiful resorts in the world and ride the most luxurious cars and teach their children in different countries,” al-Sheikh said.
He warned against those who call for electing a Muslim Caliph, whose government obtains taxes from “houses of prostitution.”
“These suffer from a polluted mindset with which they want to misguide us. They were exposed when their goals and dirty intentions became clear,” he said.
Al al-Sheikh did not mention any preacher by name, but several preachers have called for jihad in Syria.
Saudi Writer Fahad Shoqiran said al-Sheikh was speaking out of “accurate information about efforts to transform Saudi youth into firewood in regional wars.”
A Saudi cleric was criticized last year for traveling to London only weeks after he urged Muslim youth to join jihad in Syria.
Sheikh Mohammad al-Arefe, a leading Saudi preacher, called for jihad in Syria “in every possible way” during a high-level meeting of Muslim scholars in Cairo on June 14.
An estimated 600 Saudis have joined al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in Syria fighting against President Bashar’s al-Assad’s regime, a Saudi expert in Islamist movements told Al Arabiya in November 2013.
Faris Bin Hizam said many Saudis are fighting on the ranks of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the al-Nusra Front.
But the Saudi fighters are only a small number if compared to other foreign nationalities fighting in Syria, Bin Hizam said.
He added that unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda has a strong presence, there is increased awareness amongst Saudis regarding the dangers of belonging to al-Qaeda, and a widely held belief that the Syrian revolution does not need more fighters but rather financial support.
Bin Hizam noted that Saudi Arabia’s tight security measures are able to contain the al-Qaeda, something Libya and Tunisia failed to do after their revolution.
The Saudi expert said that there were no Saudis among the top 10 commanders in the al-Qaeda groups in Syria. According to him, they join the terrorist group only to take part in suicide bombings and civil operations.
Bin Hizam noted that the al-Qaeda tends to amplify the number of its Saudi members in Syria, Pakistan, Yemen and Iraq as a way to attract more volunteers and more financial support from its donors.
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/New...ligious-police-slams-extremist-preachers.html