In a newly released audio message directed at Syria and released on the Internet, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri urged all Sunni Muslims in the nation, and particularly his supporters, to band together to confront the threat of war from various factions.
“The Americans, Russians, Iranians, Alawites, and Hezbollah are coordinating their war against us,” Zawahri said, saying it was time for the various Islamist factions to stop fighting amongst themselves and direct the fighting against all those factions.
Of course, those factions aren’t really all that unified in their respective wars against Islamist rebels. Notably many US analysts spun the statement, even though it mentioned Americans first on the list, as directed primarily at Russia, and vindication of American opposition to Russia’s involvement in the war.
Zawahri has made other audio statements in recent months suggesting they could join some sort of alliance, however temporary, with ISIS for the sake of fighting the various foreign nations involved in the Syrian Civil War.
Inevitably, as the war continues, two camps will form up: Putin, Assad and the Kurds against everybody else. That they might all hate each others guts is really not the point. As Stalin used to say "you have to walk with the devil until you get to the other side of the bridge".