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Al-Qaeda's Road to Damascus? Syria and the Abdullah Azzam Brigades

Foreign Military Studies Office

3/5 ( ratings)

Since the outbreak of sustained violence in Syria over the past year, the presence of foreign Islamist fighters has become a growing concern to the crumbling Syrian government, rebels in the Free Syrian Army, NATO, and Syria’s neighbors. At the same time, and provided they can be kept under control, the mujahideen provide both the Syrian regular army and the insurgents fighting against it with an advantage. For the FSA the advantage is strategic: the foreign fighters and networks sustaining them are a disciplined force bearing money, weapons, organizational skills and technical expertise, all of which are much needed in the fight to overthrow the Assad regime;1 for the Syrian government the advantage is both strategic and political: the presence of the mujahideen undermines the uprising’s nationalist credentials and provides the government with a pretext for the heavy-handed approach used against the rebels. Thus, while the SAA claims to be fighting terrorists both domestic and foreign, the FSA accuses the Syrian government of using foreign and local groups as agent provocateurs and an empty pretext for using indiscriminate violence against a homegrown insurgency.

Language: English

Pages: 13

Format: Kindle Edition

Publisher: Penny Hill Press Inc,

Release: June 05, 2013

Al-Qaeda's Road to Damascus? Syria and the Abdullah Azzam Brigades

Foreign Military Studies Office

3/5 ( ratings)

Since the outbreak of sustained violence in Syria over the past year, the presence of foreign Islamist fighters has become a growing concern to the crumbling Syrian government, rebels in the Free Syrian Army, NATO, and Syria’s neighbors. At the same time, and provided they can be kept under control, the mujahideen provide both the Syrian regular army and the insurgents fighting against it with an advantage. For the FSA the advantage is strategic: the foreign fighters and networks sustaining them are a disciplined force bearing money, weapons, organizational skills and technical expertise, all of which are much needed in the fight to overthrow the Assad regime;1 for the Syrian government the advantage is both strategic and political: the presence of the mujahideen undermines the uprising’s nationalist credentials and provides the government with a pretext for the heavy-handed approach used against the rebels. Thus, while the SAA claims to be fighting terrorists both domestic and foreign, the FSA accuses the Syrian government of using foreign and local groups as agent provocateurs and an empty pretext for using indiscriminate violence against a homegrown insurgency.

Language: English

Pages: 13

Format: Kindle Edition

Publisher: Penny Hill Press Inc,

Release: June 05, 2013

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