Brutality of Syrian Rebels Posing Dilemma in West<\/p>\n\n\n\n
New York Times<\/p>\n\n\n\n
5 SEPTEMBER, 2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Syrian rebels posed casually, standing over their prisoners with firearms pointed down at the shirtless and terrified men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The prisoners, seven in all, were captured Syrian soldiers. Five were trussed, their backs marked with red welts. They kept their faces pressed to the dirt as the rebels\u2019 commander recited a bitter revolutionary verse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor fifty years, they are companions to corruption,\u201d he said. \u201cWe swear to the Lord of the Throne, that this is our oath: We will take revenge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The moment the poem ended, the commander, known as \u201cthe Uncle,\u201d fired a bullet into the back of the first prisoner\u2019s head. His gunmen followed suit, promptly killing all the men at their feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This scene, documented in a video smuggled out of Syria a few days ago by a former rebel who grew disgusted by the killings, offers a dark insight into how many rebels have adopted some of the same brutal and ruthless tactics as the regime they are trying to overthrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the United States debates whether to support the Obama administration\u2019s proposal that Syrian forces should be attacked for using chemical weapons against civilians, this video, shot in the spring of 2012, joins a growing body of evidence of an increasingly criminal environment populated by gangs of highwaymen, kidnappers and killers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The video also offers a reminder of the foreign policy puzzle the United States faces in finding rebel allies as some members of Congress, including Senator John McCain, press for more robust military support for the opposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the more than two years this civil war has carried on, a large part of the Syrian opposition has formed a loose command structure that has found support from several Arab nations, and, to a more limited degree, the West. Other elements of the opposition have assumed an extremist cast, and openly allied with Al Qaeda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Across much of Syria, where rebels with Western support live and fight, areas outside of government influence have evolved into a complex guerrilla and criminal landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That has raised the prospect that American military action could inadvertently strengthen Islamic extremists and criminals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Abdul Samad Issa, 37, the rebel commander leading his fighters through the executions of the captured soldiers, illustrates that very risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Known in northern Syria as \u201cthe Uncle\u201d because two of his deputies are his nephews, Mr. Issa leads a relatively unknown group of fewer than 300 fighters, one of his former aides said. The former aide, who smuggled the video out of Syria, is not being identified for security reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A trader and livestock herder before the war, Mr. Issa formed a fighting group early in the uprising by using his own money to buy weapons and underwrite the fighters\u2019 expenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His motivation, his former aide said, was just as the poem he recited said: revenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Washington on Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry addressed the issue of radicalized rebels in an exchange with Representative Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican. Mr. Kerry insisted, \u201cThere is a real moderate opposition that exists.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Kerry said that there were 70,000 to 100,000 \u201coppositionists.\u201d Of these, he said, some 15 percent to 20 percent were \u201cbad guys\u201d or extremists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. McCaul responded by saying he had been told in briefings that half of the opposition fighters were extremists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Much of the concern among American officials has focused on two groups that acknowledge ties to Al Qaeda. These groups \u2014 the Nusra Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria \u2014 have attracted foreign jihadis, used terrorist tactics and vowed to create a society in Syria ruled by their severe interpretation of Islamic law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They have established a firm presence in parts of Aleppo and Idlib Provinces and in the northern provincial capital of Raqqa and in Deir al-Zour, to the east on the Iraqi border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the jihadis claim to be superior fighters, and have collaborated with secular Syrian rebels, some analysts and diplomats also note that they can appear less focused on toppling President Bashar al-Assad. Instead, they said, they focus more on establishing a zone of influence spanning Iraq\u2019s Anbar Province and the desert eastern areas of Syria, and eventually establishing an Islamic territory under their administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other areas are under more secular control, including the suburbs of Damascus. In East Ghouta, for example, the suburbs east of the capital where the chemical attack took place, jihadis are not dominant, according to people who live and work there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And while the United States has said it seeks policies that would strengthen secular rebels and isolate extremists, the dynamic on the ground, as seen in the execution video from Idlib and in a spate of other documented crimes, is more complicated than a contest between secular and religious groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Issa\u2019s father was opposed to President Hafez al-Assad, the father of Syria\u2019s current president. He disappeared in 1982, according to Mr. Issa\u2019s accounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Issa, the aide said, believes his father was killed during a 27-day government crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood that year, known as the Hama massacre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the time he was a young man, Mr. Issa was vocally antigovernment and was arrested and imprisoned twice for a total of nine months, the aide said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the uprising against Bashar al-Assad started two and a half years ago, the family saw it as a means to try to settle old scores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At first, people who know Mr. Issa said, he was a protester, and then he led fighters in small skirmishes. By last year he was running a training camp in the highlands near Turkey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By this year, the aide said, he was gathering weapons from relatives and Arab businessmen he knew from his work as a trader and, at least once, from the Western-supported Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, the rebel forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Two representatives of the military council declined to comment on the council\u2019s military collaboration or logistical support for Mr. Issa\u2019s group. Mr. Issa could not be reached for comment over two days this week.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the spring, his group had taken a resonant name: Jund al-Sham, which it shares with three international terrorist groups, and another group in Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Its relationship \u2014 if any \u2014 with these other groups is not clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Issa\u2019s former aide and two other men who have met or investigated him said he appears to assume identities of convenience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, they said, one of his tactics has been to promise to his fighters what he calls \u201cthe extermination\u201d of Alawites \u2014 the minority Islamic sect to which the Assad family belongs, and which Mr. Issa blames for Syria\u2019s suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This sentiment may have driven Mr. Issa\u2019s decision to execute his prisoners in the video, his former aide said. The soldiers had been captured when Mr. Issa\u2019s fighters overran a government checkpoint north of Idlib in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their cellphones, the former aide said, had videos of soldiers raping Syrian civilians and looting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Issa declared them all criminals, he said, and a revolutionary trial was held. They were found guilty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Issa, the former aide said, then arranged for their execution to be videotaped so he could show his work against Mr. Assad and his military to donors, and seek more financing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The video ends abruptly after his fighters dump the soldiers\u2019 broken bodies into a well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the participants, a young man wearing a purple fleece jacket, looks into the camera and smiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Responding to the video, Director of the ODFS, Ribal Al-Assad said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis distressing video of captive soldiers being executed in cold blood goes against every convention of conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Islamists who commit these acts have no compassion and will stop at nothing to exert their control. For them this is not a fight for democracy or freedom, it is an opportunity to enslave a secular nation and turn Syria into an Islamic caliphate state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The people who commit such atrocities must not be allowed to get away with such crimes, they must be held to account for their actions and the international community needs to understand the mindset of these people \u2013 they are radicals without limits. Who knows what atrocities will be committed if the conflict is not brought to a peaceful conclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Brutality of Syrian Rebels Posing Dilemma in West New York Times 5 SEPTEMBER, 2013 The Syrian rebels posed casually, standing over their prisoners with firearms pointed down at the shirtless and terrified men. The prisoners, seven in all, were captured Syrian soldiers. Five were trussed, their backs marked with red welts. They kept their faces […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2664,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-videos"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6585"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6594,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6585\/revisions\/6594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}