Thursday’s video showing Syrian rebels summarily executed bound prisoners has not only added to the concern internationally about war crimes on both sides of the conflict, but is putting a fine point on just how fragmented Syria’s rebel movement actually is.
Calls by the rebel Syrian National Council (SNC) to hold the killers accountable have fallen on deaf ears, while efforts to press the Free Syrian Army’s (FSA) own leadership council reveals that many nominally FSA units aren’t really under the group’s control in any serious way, and while many of the ramshackle militias under the FSA banner may claim allegiance, allowing the group’s military defectors to enforce any sort of rules of engagement is a non-starter.
Early reports pinned the execution on FSA-linked fighters sieging Saraqeb, though since then the leadership has tried to blame various unaffiliated Islamists for the attack. At the same time, Islamist fighters are expressing concern that this sort of behavior is muddying the war, with one adding “we have to show we are different from the regime.”
But just as the FSA is not one monolithic group, the Islamists are in several camps as well, with a group of Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups fighting in the rebellion, and groups of al-Qaeda-backed foreign Islamists taking part as well.
The various groups have clashed over the question of leadership as well as weapon distribution, with many warning that the al-Qaeda-style fighters seem to be getting the best weapons and that the war can’t be won without them.
This myriad of loosely-affiliated rebels is perhaps the inevitable result of a war getting backing from several different nations with their own agendas and preferred end-games. The Obama Administration is even claiming the right to hand-pick the rebellion’s leadership, having condemned the SNC and promised new selections in the coming week. Ultimately this has made it difficult to tell what the rebellion’s uniting ideal is, if there is one at all.
Stop calling these barbarians rebel, there is nothing rebelion about them but prejedusim against democracy with à religions terrorism acting on behalf of EU Neo Liberal fascism and those who help Saudis and Qatari feudalism wanting to Islamize the world their way, with their religious. Every US president and prime minister of England and their political obligations toward Saudis and Israel forcing them to have a war with other Arab nations then the apartheid regime of israel and a religious dictatorial system as Saudis and Qatar. Stop the Islamization of the world, start building on democracy, this is 2012 world is ready for democracy, a functioning democracy not a falsified one that 4 years ago people were promised to hope for, you can not let such process to a hope for a hope to make it happen, hope is a empty word, by itself, hope will not get you anywhere, action in democratization hand in hand with a true and real act uniting people, not kissing hand of a tyrant or any others, working for people's needs, creating jobs for the people, reducing the militarism budget which would pay for a universal healthcare, education, not going to war or starting one no matter if is Saudis kings or Qatari kings or English or other kings are benefiting from, they are not representing the Europeans nor the American working man and women. Democracy is at home people at home waiting for it to haapen, people are ready for a true act toward a true and functioning democracy.., are you…, Mr. President or prime ministers….?
They are not "rebels". They are foreign-sponsored terrorists.