Posted on 08/24/2014 4:37:12 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Don't believe everything you read in the media: The moderate rebels of Syria are not finished. They have gained ground in different parts of the country and have broken publicly with both the al Qaeda affiliate operating there and the jihadists of the Islamic State. Meanwhile, President Bashar al-Assad's regime is showing new signs of weakness.
The death of moderate armed opposition elements has been greatly exaggerated. These groups -- whom I define as fighters who are not seeking to impose an Islamic state, but rather leaving that to a popular decision after the war ends -- have recently gained ground in Idlib province in northwestern Syria, and have nearly surrounded the provincial capital. If the rebels are ever to demonstrate military capacity, it should be in Idlib, where the supply lines from Turkey are easily accessible.
Their advances over the past month also extend beyond Idlib. Notably, moderate armed groups repelled regime attacks in the vicinity of the town of Morek, in west-central Hama province, and also advanced on the Hamidiyah air base there. They even damaged aircraft at the air base, with some reports claiming that they used surface-to-air missiles.
Moreover, they launched renewed rebel incursions into Damascus from the nearby eastern suburb of Jobar on July 25 and 26. The regime reportedly even had to re-route Damascus city buses. These incursions follow the successful operations by the Army of Islam, led by an ambitious Islamist commander named Zahran Alloush, who declared war on the Islamic State and expelled it entirely from Damascus's eastern suburbs after bloody fighting earlier in the month. Rebels in Aleppo have also begun an operation to cut off the regime's supplies from the south, so their situation in the northern city is not hopeless...
(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...
Dual Threat Has Mainstream Syrian Rebels Fearing Demise Facing Both ISIS Militants and Assad
NYT | 15 Aug 14 | Anne Barnard
Posted on 8/16/2014 6:42:02 AM by elhombrelibre
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3193479/posts
how moderate? it’s a pretty fuzzy word considering the extremes you find in that screwed up part of the world
-- are not a bit different than the Islamists if they're going to allow the Islamists to seize power like what happened in Egypt after the smoke cleared. My opinion is there's no need to discriminate if US air power is used: they're all Viet Cong when the cluster bombs explode, as far as I am concerned.
I wonder if Obama is going to use ISIS as cover for another attempt to overthrow Assad and get the rest of the Christians killed?
There is no such thing as a moderate Islamist.
They will all be IS eventually.
ISIS has very effective recruitment techniques.
There is only one good type of muslim.
Nice job Obama (sarcasm)
>The moderate rebels of Syria are not finished.<
.
Here we go again.
The word ‘moderate’ being used in conjunction with islamists.
On a scale from 1 to 10, the latter number describing ISIS, where do we place moderate muzzies and where do we categorize peaceful muzzies?
Why don’t the moderates just JOIN Assad? It seems like they’d be less likely to be beheaded by him compared to ISIS.
There are no moderate Islamic terrorists.
There are no moderate muslims.
Here we go again, equating Syrian rebels with islamists.
I wonder why Assad never lifts a finger to save any Syrian Christians?
The FSA aren’t islamic terrorists, but nice try.
What are they?
Assad gunned down thousands of Syrians, arrested and beat up schoolchildren, and purged his own military of these very same folks. IOW, no.
The best approach toward a muzzie civil war is, make sure no one in the fight runs out of ammo.
Egypt is attempting to eradicate the muslim brotherhood Obama & Hillary supported.
~I wonder why Assad never lifts a finger to save any Syrian Christians?~
Why do you think so?
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