Militiamen from the rebel forces who ousted Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi in a NATO-backed war last year are fighting alongside the Syrian rebels fighting to oust the regime of Bashar al-Assad, Reuters reports.
“Veteran fighters of last year’s civil war in Libya have come to the front-line in Syria, helping to train and organize rebels” in “communications, logistics, humanitarian issues and heavy weapons” as well as “battlefield tactics.”
Reuters interviewed Hussam Najjar, who “was part of the rebel unit that stormed Gadhafi’s compound in Tripoli a year ago” and is “now lead[ing] a unit in Syria, made up mainly of Syrians but also including some foreign fighters, including 20 senior members of his own Libyan rebel unit.”
Reports of Libyan rebels heading to fight in Syria have been around at least since December of last year. Pepe Escobar wrote at Asia Times that the Libyans had “already shipped to Syria – via Turkey – 600 highly motivated troops fresh from toppling the Gaddafi regime, to fight alongside the Free Syria Army (FSA).”
Antiwar.com columnist and former CIA officer Philip Giraldi reported the same month that “the [Syrian] rebels are being armed with surplus weapons from Libya that are being shipped on NATO aircraft even though NATO is not officially involved in the activity against Damascus.”
These are illustrations of the increasing internationalization of the Syrian conflict. The opposition fighters include thousands of foreigners coming from several neighboring countries to fight with the FSA. The perpetually fractured nature of the opposition, coupled with the growing list of human rights abuses and the increasingly influence of al-Qaeda, make the support from the US and its allies all the more dangerous.
So all that.., after all.., is not about democracy but rather establishing another Islamism states rune by Saudi Arabia and its illegitimate children from Libya and els where. The question that everyone needs to ask Obama, David Cameron of England and Hillary Clinton is this…, where is that democracy that you are talking about, where is that prosperity that you people been mingling about for years, is it at home or is in your wars abroad. The US and EU social politics as well as its social economic is in the hands of those thieves titled chiefs anarchist within the capitalism system; therefore the system has lost its value and have no moral value whatsoever, that is to say if the system ever acted within its social moral responsibility . The latest moral action by the US government is that: the US democratic justice department not going to prosecute Goldman Sachs for all the economic wrong doing as long as they pay the system.
When there are no jobs where you come from and you have mouths to feed, the support from the US and it's undemocratic allies for your real or imagined jihad makes perfect sense.
This was started by Syrians. The longer it goes on, the more foreign fighters will come to help (although even after this long, they still are in small numbers). It's just logical. For the past year and a half, more than one billion Sunni Muslims around the world have been watching this, praying for the Syrian people, collecting donations, etc. Now, during Ramadan, in the special late night prayers, imams all over the world make moving prayers for Syria. Some (still relatively few) will go and fight.
You complain that they're not organized. Again, have you ever spoken to Syrians to know what life was life under Hafez al-Assad and his son? Best friends were terrified to even speak to each other to criticize the government. It's not like they could have somehow organized an entire opposition movement and army.