الواشنطن بوست: المجموعة الجهادية تزدهر في سورية/قطر حظيت بموافقة اسرائيلية قبل زيارة أميرها لغزة





Deputy Editorial Page Editor

A jihadist group prospers in Syria


By Jackson Diehl, Monday, October 29
For more than a year, the Obama administration has been assuring the world that the downfall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is “a matter of time.” Yes, its own Middle East experts warned, but how much time matters. The longer the fighting goes on, they said, the more likely it is that what began as a peaceful mass opposition movement would behijacked by extremists, including allies of al-Qaeda.
President Obama ignored that advice, ruling out measures that could have quickly brought down the regime — such as a no-fly zone — in favor of a year of feckless diplomacy. But it turned out the experts were right. So now the consequence of Obama’s passivity has a name, one that will surely haunt the occupant of the White House in 2013: Jabhat al-Nusra.
Actually, the full name of the Middle East’s latest jihadist terror movement, announced on an al-Qaeda-linked Web site last January, is Jabhat al-Nusra li-Ahl al-Sham Min Mujaheddin al Sham fi Sahat al Jihad, which means “Support Front for the People of Syria from the Mujaheddin of Syria in the places of Jihad.” It was dismissed at first as a hoax, or maybe as a concoction of Assad’s intelligence service. Now its black flag is recognized, and often cheered, across Syria, and its bearded, baggy-pantalooned fightersare at the forefront of the critical battle for the city of Aleppo.
In the spring Jabhat al-Nusra had maybe 50 adherents, most of them in hiding, and had claimed credit for only a handful of attacks. Now it may have close to 1,000 core followers, and fighting units around Syria have begun openly claiming to belong to it. On YouTube, videos show the residents of areas taken over by the rebels waving its flag and chanting its name.
“They have been able to take an extremist identity and really give it a popular following in a context of bloody civil war,” says Elizabeth O’Bagy, the author of a sobering study of Syria’s jihadists for theInstitute for the Study of War. “They have become the most significant threat to long-term stability in Syria.”
No, Barack Obama’s policies alone did not create this monster. It is, first of all, a creature of Assad’s own regime, blowback from his years of sponsoring terrorist networks in Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories. For more than a decade, Syrian intelligence allowed al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups to establish bases and logistical networks to support attacks on American troops in Iraq, anti-Syrian politicians in Lebanon, and Israel. Now many of those rat lines have been reversed, and the extremists are targeting Assad.
They do so because they were never his natural allies — Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, is considered heretical by the Sunni jihadists — and because they see an opening to rebuild a movement that was shattered in Iraq and Afghanistan.
One of the first contingents to bolster Jabhat al-Nusra, O’Bagy found, came from Fatah al Islam, a former Syrian intelligence client that launched a battle in 2007 to take over a Palestinian refu­gee camp near Tripoli, Lebanon. “These individuals,” O’Bagy writes, “received training in weapons and insurgency tactics from the Syrian government and gained experience using them in Iraq and Lebanon. They also have knowledge of and connections to the Syrian intelligence and security apparatus.”
In fact, the group has specialized in attacks on intelligence facilities. On Oct. 9, it staged a sophisticated, three-stage assault on an air force intelligence compound outside Damascus. Earlier in the month, it claimed credit for a string of bombings in Aleppo that targeted an officer’s club and other government-held facilities, reportedly killing dozens.
Leaders of the Free Syrian Army, the mainstream rebel force that emerged from the original protest movement, don’t support the jihadists or their tactics. But as the war in cities like Aleppo becomes more desperate, Jabhat al-Nusra has provided precious reinforcements. Thanks to generous support from sources in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states, its units are often better-armed than secular forces, which have been starved by Obama’s ban on U.S. weapon supplies.
The result, says O’Bagy, is that the character of Syria’s opposition has changed. “It’s no longer a pro-democracy force trying to bring down a dictatorship. It no longer holds the moral high ground. They have muddied the waters.”
If the war drags on, Jabhat al-Nusra will surely grow stronger. It could begin to carve out a haven in the Syrian countryside where al-Qaeda operatives from around the region could gather. It could try to get hold of Syria’s abundant stocks of chemical weapons. And it could start looking beyond Syria for targets. You might say it’s a matter of time.
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ISRAELI CONSENT
  
Date29 - 10 - 2012
 
By Oraib Al Rantawi
"The Qatari' Emir's visit to the Gaza Strip could not have taken place without clear Israeli consent, at least in order to ensure the visit and the visitor's security," writes 'Oraib Al Rantawi in Wednesday's Jordanian daily Addustour.
Consequently, all talk of 'siege-busting' is no more than empty media verbiage that cannot stand its ground for long before the hard facts. At any rate, there are those in Israel who have exposed the fact that the visit was coordinated with Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu's office beforehand; that [Israeli Foreign Minister] Lieberman's protesting statements make absolutely no difference; and that Israel has an interest from the completion of a 'problematic' visit of this sort which can only further deepen and prolong the inter-Palestinian split.
In content, on the other hand, Emir Hamad's visit cannot be understood without taking Qatar’s ‘adoption’ of the Muslim Brotherhood across the region in general, including Palestine, into consideration. It has embraced the Brotherhood's 'spiritual sheikh/patron' [Sheikh al-Qaradhawi]. It has received Hamas's Politburo head. It backed [the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated ruling party] Ennahda in Tunisia and provided it with all the means it needed to win the elections. It backed Egypt's Brotherhood. And it is providing money and arms to Syria's Brotherhood. Nor is it unlikely that it has links with the Gulf's Brotherhood groups of whom the Gulf's five other states are wary, starting with the UAE.
Moreover, the visit can only be interpreted as biased in Hamas's favor. But this bias is not about confronting Israel, of course. Were that the case, we would have backed and blessed it. It is bias in confronting the PA, and is being carried out in isolation from and over the head of the PA. For this reason, we believe that this visit will contribute to consolidating the inter-Palestinian split. It will encourage Hamas in Gaza in particular to persist with its rejection of the Doha Agreement and subsequent agreements – and the rest of that story is well-known.
The claim that the Emir of Qatar phoned President 'Abbas on the eve of his visit to Gaza as an indication of Qatar’s 'balanced’ position, is ‘an excuse that is worse than an admission of guilt’ [as the Arab saying goes]. What sense is there in that phone call if the visit was going to happen anyway, if the arrangements for it were already concluded, and if its date had already been decided, all without the PA and the PLO's knowledge – indeed, against their will?
But the peak of Qatari disregard for the Palestinian leadership and legitimacy was manifest in Sheikh Hamad's invitation to 'Abbas to visit Gaza together with him. God be praised! The Emir of Qatar is inviting the President of Palestine to visit Palestine's Southern provinces!
We have heard that Qatar sought to have Hamas Politburo head Khalid Mish'al accompany Sheikh Hamad to Gaza, just as the Qatari crown prince had Mish'al accompany him on his famous visit to Amman. But that did not happen. And we do not know from whence the veto came: Did Israel reject Mish'al's visit on the grounds that it violated the limits of its 'tolerance'? Or did Hamas leaders in Gaza not welcome the idea? Perhaps they viewed Mish'al's visit to Gaza as an 'electoral' one, especially since the movement is on the threshold of fateful elections in the coming weeks?
Or was the entire matter no more than a rumor, especially in light of reports that spoke of a Qatari preference for a change in Hamas's leadership, and Doha's nomination of Abu al-Walid [Mish'al] for a senior position in the Muslim Brotherhood's international leadership? Or was Mish'al himself unhappy or uneasy about a speedy visit to the Strip, one that would bring him no benefit, and in which all eyes will be focused on the emir and perhaps on him alone?
Be that as it may, the Emir of Qatar's visit to the Strip is political act par excellence, despite all the din about 'development' and 'solidarity' that has preceded and surrounded it. It primarily is an expression of Qatar's bias in favor of one Palestinian camp against another. It is also an attempt to undermine Palestinian legitimacy and exert more political, moral, and financial pressures on the PA and the Palestinian presidency. It is yet another brick in the wall of the inter-Palestinian split and fragmentation. The visit cannot be viewed in isolation of all these factors.
It would have been enough for Qatar to send money and make some calls for the wheel of its developmental projects to begin to spin. Gaza did not need a visit from the Emir to receive his monies, aid, and projects. A junior official from any Qatari ministry could have represented him. But the political nature of the visit is its essence, from A to Z.
As for the visit’s 'solidarity dimension', that is another story. How many ships and convoys have been returned by Israel without being able to 'bust the siege'? Why is Qatar alone allowed to 'bust the siege'? Just a few days ago, a number of European and Western MPs and peaceful activists fell into the hands of the Israeli navy when they were no more than 30 meters off the coast of Gaza. Why were they not permitted to express their solidarity while the senior Qatari delegation alone is permitted to reach the end line and achieve its aims?
"The answer to this question is also political par excellence. It basically has to do with the visit's two aims – to bolster Hamas at the expense of Fateh, the PA, and the PLO; and to consolidate the split that serves no one's interests as much as it serves Israel’s interest," concludes Rantawi.

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