“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.
“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.