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Al-Qaeda jihadis seize bases, weapons from U.S.-backed “moderate” Syrian rebels

Mar 13, 2016 5:32 pm By Robert Spencer

“The Nusra Front arrested U.S.-supplied fighters belonging to FSA’s 30th division last summer and seized their weapons in a major embarrassment to the U.S. government’s train-and-equip program which was meant to support carefully vetted ‘moderate’ rebels,” says this report. That echoes the President’s language: “We have a Free Syrian Army and a moderate opposition that we have steadily been working with that we have vetted,” said Obama in September 2014. In July 2013, Free Syrian Army fighters entered the Christian village of Oum Sharshouh and began burning down houses and terrorizing the population, forcing 250 Christian families to flee the area. Worthy News reported that just two days later, Free Syrian Army rebels “targeted the residents of al-Duwayr/Douar, a Christian village close to the city of Homs and near Syria’s border with Lebanon….Around 350 armed militants forcefully entered the homes of Christian families who were all rounded-up in the main square of the village and then summarily executed.” And in September 2013, a day after Secretary of State John Kerry praised the Free Syrian Army as “a real moderate opposition,” the FSA took to the Internet to post videos of its attack on the ancient Syrian Christian city of Maaloula, one of the few places where Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is still spoken.

al-qaeda syria

“U.S.-backed Syrian rebels say al-Qaida militants have seized their bases and stolen weapons in a series of raids in the northern Idlib province,” Associated Press, March 13, 2016:

BEIRUT (AP) — Al-Qaeda militants swept through a rebel-held town in northern Syria in a display of dominance Sunday, arresting U.S.-backed fighters and looting weapons stores belonging to the Free Syrian Army.

The militants belonging to the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front along with allied jihadists have been moving to exert their authority over rebel-held areas in Idlib province since a partial ceasefire to the country’s five-year conflict took effect two weeks ago, extinguishing patriotic demonstrations and sidelining nationalist militias.

The FSA’s 13th Division said on Twitter Sunday that Nusra fighters were going door to door in the town of Maarat Numan and arresting its cadres after Nusra, alongside fighters from the Jund al-Aqsa faction, seized Division 13 posts the night before….

The Nusra Front arrested U.S.-supplied fighters belonging to FSA’s 30th division last summer and seized their weapons in a major embarrassment to the U.S. government’s train-and-equip program which was meant to support carefully vetted “moderate” rebels.

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Filed Under: Al-Qaeda, Moderate Muslims, Syria Tagged With: Free Syrian Army, Nusra Front


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Comments

  1. gravenimage says

    Mar 13, 2016 at 6:28 pm

    Al-Qaeda jihadis seize bases, weapons from U.S.-backed “moderate” Syrian rebels
    …………………………….

    These “moderates” are at best inept and vacillating, and at worst actually complicit.

    And why not? At heart most of them have little genuine ideological disagreements with the “radicals”.

    • Carolyne says

      Mar 14, 2016 at 2:21 pm

      Oh no! They couldn’t be complicit. I mean, John McCain said he had lunch with them and they told him they were pro-American.

      Either our government is thoroughly infiltrated with ISIS or we have the dumbest government officials the world has ever seen. I fear the former.

  2. SoCalMike says

    Mar 13, 2016 at 6:50 pm

    Morons McCain, Ryan and Gramnasty and traitors Obama and Kerry once again helped our enemies.

    These are the worst and dimmest blobs except for Obama and Kerry.
    They are traitors with bad intentions and the Repubes are too afraid to say boo about it.

  3. Angemon says

    Mar 13, 2016 at 7:45 pm

    “We have a Free Syrian Army and a moderate opposition that we have steadily been working with that we have vetted,” said Obama in September 2014. In July 2013, Free Syrian Army fighters entered the Christian village of Oum Sharshouh and began burning down houses and terrorizing the population, forcing 250 Christian families to flee the area. Worthy News reported that just two days later, Free Syrian Army rebels “targeted the residents of al-Duwayr/Douar, a Christian village close to the city of Homs and near Syria’s border with Lebanon….Around 350 armed militants forcefully entered the homes of Christian families who were all rounded-up in the main square of the village and then summarily executed.”

    And these are the same people who are supposed to vet “Syrian” “refugees”.

  4. Qwerty says

    Mar 14, 2016 at 2:24 am

    ”Moderate”, I wonder what exactly makes a Western Politician,Journalist etc. call such people moderate, do they believe & fight for Western style freedom(minority,women’s & gay rights and the protections that come with this) & Democracy NO. As a logicall thinking westerner I would never call that moderate, maybe the exiled syrian suit wearer they have on standby in the background just waiting for Assad to lose,be assassinated etc. is moderate in appearance and certainly he will be a yes man to them and their interests whether hes moderate or not, its genius,use the hardcore islamists to do the fighting and dying and then push in a clean shaven suit wearer,but it wont work,Bagdadi aint stepping aside for nobody, the guys fighting aint gonna have it neither.What we will get is vast stretches of land ruled by head cutting retro muslims and this on the doorstep of Europe, and thanks to Mama Merkel many of them have already made the journey to Western Countries, the consequences are predictable.

  5. Carolyne says

    Mar 14, 2016 at 2:24 pm

    If Assad is replaced, Syria will be the same story as Libya and Yemen.

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