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| Bilal Abdul Kareem, AQ Apologist. |
Al-Qaeda in Syria has two noteworthy apologists. One is the
jihadist propagandist Bilal Abdul Kareem, a former disgraced correspondent for
CNN, often seen in videos sporting a long beard and reporting from the ground
in the al-Nusra Front strongholds in northwestern Syria, and the other is the
self-styled Syria analyst and the fellow of the Middle East Institute Charles
Lister.
Recently, the latter spin-doctor has written a research
paper for the Hudson Institute, titled “The
Syria Effect: Al-Qaeda Fractures,” [1] in which he has tried to prove that
militants of al-Qaeda in Syria are not “bad guys” per se, rather they are “good
terrorists” whose ambitions are restricted to fighting the Syrian government,
and they don’t intend to mount terror attacks in the Western countries.
In conclusion of the lengthy screed, he has craftily
proposed “Gaza-fication” of Syria’s northwestern Idlib, where like the Hamas in
Gaza, the so-called “Salvation Government” of the al-Nusra Front, the Syrian
affiliate of al-Qaeda, can be recognized as a legitimate government
administering the northwestern enclave under the tutelage of Ankara.
Unwittingly, however, Charles Lister has spilled the beans
in the article about a July 30 American airstrike in rural Aleppo that killed
several high-profile jihadist dissidents, who had challenged the unity of the
Washington-backed insurgency against the Syrian government offensive in
northern Hamah and Idlib in late April.
Before getting into details, it’s worth noting that Hurras
al-Din is a small radical outfit in Syria’s northwestern Idlib that split in
2018 from al-Qaeda in Syria, which was formerly known as al-Nusra Front until
2016, and now as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
An excerpt from Charles Lister’s research paper reads: “When
the Syrian regime and Russia launched their all-out military offensive on
northwestern Syria in late-April 2019, a debate ensued within Hurras al-Din – a
breakaway faction of Tahrir al-Sham, formerly known as al-Nusra Front – should
they assist Tahrir al-Sham and other opposition groups by reinforcing
their frontlines in northern Hama?
“Given al-Qaeda Central chief Ayman al-Zawahiri’s public
directives indicating the importance of Islamist unity and sustaining the armed
struggle against the regime, the leader of Hurras al-Din Abu Hammam al-Suri and
his deputy Sami al-Oraydi emerged as tacitly supportive of helping other
jihadist groups, including Tahrir al-Sham, wherever necessary.
“The debate over Hurras al-Din’s role on Tahrir al-Sham’s
opposition frontlines spilled out into the open in late June of 2019, when
Hurras al-Din leader Abu Hammam al-Suri expelled two prominent Hurras al-Din
clerics, Abu Dhar al-Masri and Abu Yahya al-Jazairi, for having issued non-sanctioned
rulings forbidding fighting in northern Hama. Some alleged Abu Yahya had gone
as far as pronouncing takfir on Tahrir al-Sham, thereby
excommunicating them from Islam and labeling them apostates and legitimate
targets for attack.
“Abu Hammam’s dismissal of Abu Dhar and Abu Yahya sparked an
uproar within Hurras al-Din. The group’s internal judicial court, led by Abu
Amr al-Tunisi, issued a petition signed by more than 300 members on June 23
demanding an arbitration involving Abu Hammam and his deputy, Sami al-Oraydi.
“However, neither Abu Hammam nor Oraydi turned up at the
planned arbitration on June 25, leading the court’s chief, Abu Amr, to issue a
furious five-minute audio statement accusing HaD’s leaders of nepotism. Abu Amr
was swiftly expelled from Hurras al-Din, and this led another senior leader,
Abu Yaman al-Wazzani, to declare in exasperation ‘the jihadist project over.’ Later
that day, a statement confirmed that Wazzani and another fellow critic, Abu
Musab al-Libi, had also been expelled from Hurras al-Din.
“Tensions persisted through the summer of 2019, albeit less
intensely. But in a mysterious twist on June 30, 2019—just days after the
above-mentioned crisis—Abu Amr al-Tunisi, Abu Yahya al-Jazairi and Abu Dhar
al-Masri were all killed, along with three other allied hardliners (Abu
al-Fid’a al-Tunisi, Abu Dujana al-Tunisi and Abu Ibrahim al-Shami) in an
American airstrike that targeted a meeting of Hurras al-Din detractors in rural
Aleppo.
“That was the first American strike in northwestern Syria in
more than two years and it was followed up two months later by another on
August 31, 2019, targeting Hurras al-Din ally Ansar al-Tawhid. Al-Qaeda veteran
Abu Khallad al-Mohandis was also killed in an improvised explosive device attack
that targeted his personal vehicle in Idlib city on August 22, 2019.”
It becomes abundantly clear after reading the excerpts from
Charles Lister’s article that not only has Washington provided weapons and
training to militant factions battling Damascus but it has also conducted
airstrikes eliminating jihadist dissidents who dared to threaten the unity of
large militant outfits in northwestern Idlib, such as Tahrir al-Sham, formerly
known as al-Nusra Front.
During the eight-year proxy war in Syria, Abu Mohammad
al-Jolani, the leader of al-Nusra Front, has emerged as the second most
influential militant leader after the Islamic State’s slain chief Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi. In fact, since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in August 2011
to April 2013, the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front were a single organization
that chose the banner of Jabhat al-Nusra.
Although the current al-Nusra Front has been led by Abu
Mohammad al-Jolani, he was appointed
[2] as the emir of al-Nusra Front by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the late leader of
Islamic State, in January 2012. Thus, al-Jolani’s Nusra Front is only a
splinter group of the Islamic State, which split from its parent organization
in April 2013 over a leadership dispute between the two organizations.
In August 2011, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was based in Iraq,
began sending Syrian and Iraqi jihadists experienced in guerrilla warfare
across the border into Syria to establish an organization inside the country.
Led by a Syrian known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the group began to recruit
fighters and establish cells throughout the country. On 23 January 2012, the
group announced its formation as Jabhat al-Nusra.
In April 2013, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi released an audio
statement in which he announced that al-Nusra Front had been established,
financed and supported by the Islamic State of Iraq. Al-Baghdadi declared that
the two groups were merging under the name "Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria.” The leader of al-Nusra Front, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, issued a
statement denying the merger and complaining that neither he nor anyone else in
al-Nusra's leadership had been consulted about it.
Al-Qaeda Central’s leader, Ayman al Zawahiri, tried to
mediate the dispute between al-Baghdadi and al-Jolani but eventually, in
October 2013, he endorsed al-Nusra Front as the official franchise of al-Qaeda
Central in Syria. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, however, defied the nominal authority
of al-Qaeda Central and declared himself the caliph of the Islamic State of
Iraq and Syria.
Keeping this background in mind, it becomes abundantly clear
that a single militant organization operated in Syria and Iraq under the
leadership of al-Baghdadi until April 2013, which chose the banner of al-Nusra
Front, and that the current emir of the subsequent breakaway faction of
al-Nusra Front, al-Jolani, was actually al-Baghdadi’s deputy in Syria.
Thus, the Islamic State operated in Syria since August 2011
under the designation of al-Nusra Front and it subsequently changed its name to
the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in April 2013, after which it
overran Raqqa and parts of Deir al-Zor in the summer of 2013. And in January
2014, it overran Fallujah and parts of Ramadi in Iraq and reached the zenith of
its power when it captured Mosul in June 2014.
Excluding al-Baghdadi and a handful of his hardline Islamist
aides, the rest of Islamic State’s top leadership is comprised of Saddam-era
military and intelligence officials. According to a Washington
Post report [3], hundreds of ex-Baathists constitute the top- and mid-tier
command structure of the Islamic State who plan all the operations and direct
its military strategy.
It is an indisputable fact that morale and ideology play an
important role in battlefield, and well-informed readers must also be aware
that the Takfiri brand of most jihadists these days has directly been inspired
by the puritanical Wahhabi-Salafi ideology of Saudi Arabia, but ideology alone
is not sufficient to succeed in battle.
Looking at the Islamic State’s astounding gains in Syria and
Iraq in 2013-14, a question naturally arises that where did its recruits get
all the training and state-of-the-art weapons that were imperative not only for
hit-and-run guerrilla warfare but also for capturing and holding large swathes
of territory in Syria and Iraq.
According to a revelatory December 2013 news
report [4] from a newspaper affiliated with the UAE government which
supports the Syrian opposition, it is clearly mentioned that along with AK-47s,
rocket-propelled grenades and other military gear, the Saudi regime also
provided machine gun-mounted Toyota pick-up trucks to every batch of five
jihadists who had completed their training in the training camps located in
Jordan’s border regions along southern Syria.
Once those militants crossed over to Daraa and Quneitra in
southern Syria from the Jordan-Syria border, then those Toyota pickup trucks
could easily have traveled all the way to Raqqa and Deir al-Zor in eastern
Syria, and thence to Mosul and Anbar in Iraq – the former strongholds of the
Islamic State.
It is clearly spelled out in the report that Syrian
militants got arms and training through a secret command center known as the
Military Operations Center (MOC) based in the intelligence headquarters’
building in Amman, Jordan, that was staffed by high-ranking military officials
from 14 countries, including the US, European nations, Israel and the Gulf states
to wage a covert war against the Syrian government.
Footnotes:
[1] The Syria Effect: Al-Qaeda Fractures:
[2] Al-Jolani was appointed as the emir of al-Nusra Front by
al-Baghdadi:
[3] Islamic State’s top command dominated by ex-officers in
Saddam’s army:
[4] Syrian rebels get arms and advice through secret command
center in Amman:
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