But observations made by German journalist Daniel Etter during a recent visit to rebel-controlled towns near the embattled city of Aleppo suggest that there is no mere “presence” of jihadists among the rebels: religiously-inspired mujahideen is what the rebels are. The real question is whether there is a presence of anything else.

John Rosenthal

Asia Times

14th August, 2012

Asia Times

There has recently been a small stir in the American media, as media organizations from the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal to the Associated Press have finally gotten around to acknowledging a “presence” of al-Qaeda and like-minded jihadist groups among the Syrian rebel forces seeking to topple the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

Read more

M.K.Bhadrakumar

7th August, 2012

For all those pundits in our strategic community who religiously take the word from the Council of Foreign Relations in New York as the Bhagavad Gita, this must come as a terrible shock — an argumentative piece by a senior fellow of the CFR justifying the logic of using the Salafist fighters as instrument of US policy to bring about ‘regime change’ in Syria. The argument runs like this:

Read the rest of this entry »

WSWS

9th August, 2012

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday issued a warning against anyone “attempting to exploit the misery of the Syrian people, either by sending in proxies or sending in terrorist fighters.” She insisted that such actions would “not be tolerated.”

Read the rest of this entry »

RT

30th July, 2012

Radical Islamists with “British accents” are among the coalition forces looking to topple Bashar Assad, says Jeroen Oerlemans, a photographer who was held hostage in Syria for a week. The UK Foreign Office has launched an investigation.

Read the rest of this entry »