Damascus: The gradual collapse of Syria’s moderate rebel forces is forcing the US to consider extending its support to the Islamist groups it has long rejected but which are steadily rising to become the Al Assad regime’s principal opponents.
The irony, as some of Syria’s forlorn moderate rebels are noting, is that the US may have unwittingly aided in the demise of moderate forces because it for so long held off extending lethal and nonlethal aid to them – out of fear that some of that aid might fall into the hands of Islamists.
Now it’s the Islamists who, without any US assistance, have zoomed past the moderate rebel forces in organisation, control of territory, and staying power.
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... The US envoy to Syria, Robert Ford, met last month with leaders from the recently formed Islamic Front – a coalition of seven groups fighting for a strict Islamic state in Syria.
Ambassador Ford could continue those discussions in the coming days as part of a trip to London and Turkey to meet with Syria’s political opposition and its international supporters.
US officials and other members of the international Friends of Syria group have privately fretted for more than a year about the eclipse of the moderate rebels by Islamist factions, which include groups the US has designated as terrorist organisations.
The reversed fortunes of Syria’s rebel coalitions burst into the open last weekend when fighters from the Islamic Front overran the northern Syria base of the moderate, US-backed Supreme Military Council (SMC). The Islamists took control of the base’s warehouses of US-supplied nonlethal material, including pickup trucks, communications equipment, medicines, and thousands of ready-to-eat meals.
The US, joined by Britain, quickly suspended all nonlethal aid to the rebels. US officials insist the suspension is only temporary and could end soon, especially if the Islamic Front returns the seized material as the US is demanding.
But the episode showcases both the weak state of Syria’s moderate rebels – and the disarray in America’s Syria policy. ...
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