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Jihadists join Aleppo fight, eye Islamic state, surgeon says
reuters ^ | 9/9/2012 | John Irish

Posted on 09/09/2012 7:16:48 AM PDT by Mount Athos

Foreign Islamists intent on turning Syria into an autocratic theocracy have swollen the ranks of rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad and think they are waging a "holy war", a French surgeon who treated fighters in Aleppo has said.

Jacques Beres, co-founder of medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, returned from Syria on Friday evening after spending two weeks working clandestinely in a hospital in the besieged northern Syrian city.

In an interview with Reuters in his central Paris apartment on Saturday, the 71-year-old said that contrary to his previous visits to Homs and Idlib earlier this year about 60 percent of those he had treated this time had been rebel fighters and that at least half of them had been non-Syrian.

"It's really something strange to see. They are directly saying that they aren't interested in Bashar al-Assad's fall, but are thinking about how to take power afterwards and set up an Islamic state with sharia law to become part of the world Emirate," the doctor said.

The foreign jihadists included young Frenchmen who said they were inspired by Mohammed Merah, a self-styled Islamist militant from Toulouse, who killed seven people in March in the name of al-Qaeda.

Some are professional "jihadists", veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya or Libya who bring combat and bomb-making skills with them that alarm the Western and Arab governments which have cheered the rebels on.

Merah tore a wound in France's fragile sense of community in March when he gunned down three soldiers from North African immigrant families, a rabbi and three Jewish children.

Paris has for several years been concerned that French radical Islamists who have travelled to lawless zones would return to plot attacks at home. Merah had travelled to Afghanistan and Pakistan to receive training.

(Excerpt) Read more at uk.news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: syria; waronterror

1 posted on 09/09/2012 7:16:54 AM PDT by Mount Athos
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To: Mount Athos
In effect, Obama Arab Spring militia to bring about the Greater Caliphate.
2 posted on 09/09/2012 7:21:45 AM PDT by Truth29
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To: Mount Athos

This is news ?


3 posted on 09/09/2012 7:22:13 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks (I didn't post this. Someone else did.)
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To: Mount Athos

Syria’s battle for survival is just part of Obama’s “Arab Spring” and the flowering of Sharia law over the entire Middle East. He is no doubt secretly aiding the cause of these “freedom fighters” who will enslave Syrians in the shackles of Islamists.


4 posted on 09/09/2012 7:24:00 AM PDT by txrefugee
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To: Mount Athos
We backed the wrong side in Egypt and,it's beginning to seem,we're backing the wrong side in Syria.But then,one would expect nothing less from a “community organizer”.
5 posted on 09/09/2012 7:28:34 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Voter ID Equals "No Representation Without Respiration")
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To: txrefugee

txrefugee ~ “Syria’s battle for survival is just part of Obama’s “Arab Spring” and the flowering of Sharia law over the entire Middle East. He is no doubt secretly aiding the cause of these “freedom fighters” who will enslave Syrians in the shackles of Islamists.”

This can’t be true , we have all heard from the MSM that Islam is the “Religion of Piece” (one piece at a time for the Caliphate)


6 posted on 09/09/2012 7:52:43 AM PDT by Tilted Irish Kilt
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To: Mount Athos

PLacemark.


7 posted on 09/09/2012 9:59:10 PM PDT by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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