Most of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has been very busy over the past month and a half, fighting a major “war within a war” against other factions within the rebel-held north, a battle that has been as intense as the civil war itself.
AQI fighters in Latakia didn’t have nearly so much infighting to deal with, and instead focused on attacking civilians around them, sacking three hospitals in the province.
In Rabiaa they arrested rival rebel “guards” in front of the hospital then stormed it outright. Then they hit another hospital just down the road, killing one rebel and abducting another patient. In Biranas they raided a hospital and kidnapped five foreign doctors.
Elsewhere in the area, AQI has been targeting Red Crescent workers and foreign journalists. It is in the context of this spiraling aggression that al-Qaeda itself formally disavowed AQI, and asked the group to stop using their name.
AQI isn’t showing signs of slowing down, and if anything seems to be taking over much of the region from the other rebel groups.
The indigenous populations and the governments of the ME nations where AQI and other radical groups are operating need to decide that these radical groups are antithetical to the needs of the populations. When the governments make the effort to curtail these groups from operating as freely as they do, then perhaps they can deal with the reasons why these groups exist to begin with. If that means (and it should) that they send the US packing from the region then they need to do it. As long as the US is allowed to maintain a presence in the region, peace will not happen. Sorry to say that but the facts are no longer suspicions no one talks about.
People of Syria will defeat these thugs, they will defeat these barbarians, is just a matter of time, the Syrian war is the end of Middle East tyrant regimes, Syrian war is the end of religious terrorism.
I’m not clear what you are referring to as AQI which WAS an organization years ago. There is the ISIS, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which is the most brutal, with no restraint with regards to civilians and least willing to submit to advice or mediation by other jihadi groups. They revel in blood like Al Zarqawi did. They outright dismissed Al Zawahiri’s advice about the treatment of both civilians and other jihadi groups and are led by the second man in a row who uses the alias al Baghdadi. Then there is the group that IS recognized by AQCentral and swears allegiance to them, Jabhat Al Nusrah. They are much smaller, but will listen to advice and submit to mediation. Then there is the gaggle of jihadi groups, more heavily populated by Syrian jihadis. Many of these now coordinated and cooperate with other Islamist jihadis, but not much with the non-Islamist fighting groups. On the level of the ideologues, there is also intense argument about whether ISIS or JN represents the true jihadi way. Please indicate whether you are referring to a new group or one of these.