Mainstream analysts see all these jihads as separate, discrete conflicts that have nothing to do with one another. This is because they discount and choose to remain willfully ignorant of the jihad doctrine that these jihadists all believe in, and that binds them together, leading them to see these conflicts all as part of the larger global jihad to impose Sharia the world over. There has been an international aspect to all the jihads of recent years, with foreign fighters streaming in from all over the world to Bosnia, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, and now to Syria, to wage jihad for the sake of Allah. Purely nationalist struggles would never have attracted that kind of international support.
“Syria Jihadists Say Liberation of ‘Palestine,’ Golan Will Follow Fall of Assad (VIDEO),” by Joshua Levitt for Algemeiner, January 28 (thanks to Blazing Cat Fur):
In recent footage from a Syrian Jihadist training camp in Aleppo, Mohammed Hussein, founder of Bin Laden Front, told a camera crew from VICE News that the militants’s [sic] goal was to topple the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, then its “aim is to liberate greater Syria.”
Hassan Abu Ali, a 15-year old fighter profiled in the report, told VICE, “Once Syria is liberated, our next mission is to liberate Palestine and Golan and continue our conquests. Thanks be to Allah.”
Hussein, the group’s leader, described the Bin Laden Front, one of many Jihadist armies fighting the regime outside of Aleppo and in the Syrian countryside, as a direct outgrowth of his training under 9-11 mastermind Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, in 2001.
The footage, uploaded to YouTube last week, also profiled a female school teacher who, clad in burka and fatigues, was leading an all-female cell in military maneuvers through burnt-out Aleppo. Like the others, she said her anger was directed at the regime: “We are most unmerciful with those who raised their weapon to their own people and we would crush with our feet not only Bashar but whoever supports him.”
The greater question of Jihad and its call for death as a martyr was also probed in one scene, in particular, with 15-year-old Abu Ali, trying to convince his fair-haired younger sister, still a toddler, of the value of him dying for the cause. “The revolution has opened my eyes to the true nature of the regime,” he told her.
After pushing her on a swing, Abu Ali is sitting next to her on a sofa in their family’s house with his rifle by his side, and she asks him if he’s going to go play with it, and he responds that he’s going into battle with it.
“G-d willing, we’ll be victorious and then I’ll be granted martyrdom,” Abu Ali tells her, but she says, “No.”
“We’ll be victorious and we’ll be granted martyrdom,” he insists. She, again, responds, “No.”
“Why not?” he asks.
“We’ve got only one, Abu Ali, you,” she says.
“Excuse me?” the young Jihadist asks.
“You are our only Abu Ali,” she says, already, as a child, understanding the impact his choice of martyrdom will have on their family.