3,000 "Moderate
Rebels" Defect to ISIS - US Preparing
5,000 More
Harbinger of what's to become of US
"rebel army" it plans to stand up in
spring.
By Tony Cartalucci
January 17,
2015 "ICH"
- "LD"
-
Reported along the
peripheries of the Western media, it was
reported recently that some 3,000
so-called “moderate rebels” of the “Free
Syrian Army” had
defected to the “Islamic State” (ISIS).
While not the first time so-called
“moderates” have crossed over openly to
Al Qaeda or ISIS, it is one of the
largest crossovers that has occurred.
With them, these 3,000
fighters will bring weapons, cash,
equipment, and training provided to them
by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United
States, the UK, and perhaps most ironic
of all in the wake of the recent terror
attack in Paris, France.
Indeed, ISIS and Al Qaeda’s ranks
continue to swell amid this insidious
network of “terror laundering” that is
only set to grow.
It was an open conspiracy
exposed by
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
Seymour Hersh in his 2007 article, “The
Redirection: Is the Administration’s new
policy benefiting our enemies in the war
on terrorism?“, that the US and its
regional allies sought to use Al Qaeda
and other extremist groups to wage a
proxy war on Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah
in Lebanon. This conspiracy has clearly
manifested itself today in the form of
ISIS. Despite a feigned military
campaign waged against ISIS, targeting
primarily Syria’s oil infrastructure,
the true source of ISIS’ strength,
emanating from NATO territory in
Turkey, remains unscathed and
uninterrupted. Additionally, torrents of
cash, weapons, and supplies are working
their way across ISIS’ rank and file
through the migration of so-called
“moderates” under their banner.
Before this brigade-sized
defection, several other “vetted moderate
rebel” groups, armed by the US in
particular, have openly pledged allegiance
to Al Qaeda. The most notorious incident was
when terror group Harakat Hazm, provided
antitank TOW missiles by the US, openly
pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda’s Syrian
franchise, US State Department-listed
foreign terrorist organization Al Nusra. Al
Nusra would assume possession of the TOW
missiles, using them allegedly in a
successful campaign in Syria’s Idlib
province.
The Daily Beast would report
in its September 2014 article, “Al
Qaeda Plotters in Syria ‘Went Dark,’ U.S.
Spies Say,” that:
One Syrian rebel group
supported in the past by the United
States condemned
the air strikes on Tuesday. Harakat
Hazm, a rebel group that received a
shipment of U.S. anti-tank weapons in
the spring, called the airstrikes
“an attack on national sovereignty” and
charged that foreign led attacks only
strengthen the Assad regime.The
statement comes from a document,
purportedly from the group, that has
circulated online and was posted in
English translation from a Twitter
account called Syria Conflict Monitor.
Several Syria experts, including the
Brookings Doha Center’s Charles Lister,
believe the document to be authentic.
Before the official
statement, there were signs that Harakat
Hazm was making alliances in Syria that
could conflict with its role as a U.S.
partner. In
early Septemeber a Harakat Hazm official
told a reporter for the L.A. Times:
“Inside Syria, we became labeled as
secularists and feared Nusra Front was
going to battle us…But Nusra doesn’t
fight us, we actually fight alongside
them. We like Nusra.”
This group would later be reported by the
Western press as having “surrendered” to Al
Qaeda. The
International Business Times would claim in
its article, “Syria:
Al-Nusra Jihadists ‘Capture US TOW Anti-Tank
Missiles’ from Moderate Rebels,” that:
Weaponry supplied
by the US to moderate Syrian rebels was
feared to have fallen into the hands of
jihadist militants affiliated to
al-Qaida after clashes between rival
groups.
Islamist fighters
with Jabhat al-Nusra seized control of
large swathes of land in Jabal
al-Zawiya, Idlib province, at the
weekend, routing the US-backed groups
the Syrian Revolutionaries Front (SFR)
and Harakat Hazm, activists said.
Washington relied on SFR
and Harakat Hazm to counter Isis
(Islamic State) militants on the ground
in Syria, complementing its air strikes.
Clearly however, Harakat
Hazm’s “surrender” was merely the finalizing
of its growing alliance with Al Nusra.
US Prepares Another Brigade
for ISIS
When “moderates” appear
inevitably destined for the ranks of
ISIS, and with US weapons falling into
Al Qaeda’s hands along with entire
brigade-sized defections taking place,
what the world would last expect is for
the US to prepare another brigade-sized
army to arm, fund, train, and turn loose
inside of Syria. But that is precisely
what the US is planning to do.
Stars and Stripes would
report in its article, “Agreement
reached for US to train Syrian rebels in
Turkey,” that:
Officials say the
initial round of training would produce
of 5,000 trained Free Syrian Army
members within about a year.
Saudi Arabia in
September agreed to host the training of
moderate Syrian rebels to assist the
U.S. strategy to combat Islamic State
insurgents, who control territory in
Syria and Iraq.
U.S. support of the
Free Syrian Army has been criticized as
halting by supporters of greater U.S.
involvement in Syria, and the group
suffered setbacks when units were
overrun and driven from their bases in
recent weeks by members of another
insurgent group, the al-Qaida-linked
Nusra Front.
Only this “Free Syrian
Army” wasn’t overrun and driven out by
Al Nusra – as previously mentioned –
instead many of these groups had been
part of long-running alliances with the
Al Qaeda franchise, and simply made it
official, bringing their Western arms,
cash, and training with them.
For the US already,
plausible deniability is impossible with
revelations as early as 2007 exposing
America’s desire to use Al Qaeda as a
proxy military force. With Harakat Hazm
turning over US-supplied antitank TOW
missiles to Al Qaeda, and now an entire
brigade-sized defection by so-called
“Free Syrian Army” fighters to ISIS –
what besides “disaster” could befall
America’s new brigade it plans to start
training this spring?
Inevitably, these
fighters, their supplies and weapons
will end up consolidated under ISIS and
Al Nusra’s banner. Terrorism continues
to grow in Syria not because of ISIS’
control over oilfields and revenue from
hostage ransoms, but because the US and
its partners continue to intentionally
feed into its maw thousands of trained
fighters, weapons, and billions in cash,
equipment, and other supplies.
When these terrorists
begin filtering into Europe and America,
the same interests involved in
intentionally creating this massive
terrorist enterprise in Syria will wring
their hands demanding what little is
left of civilization at home be
dismantled, after having insidiously and
intentionally destroyed it abroad.
Tony Cartalucci,
Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher
and writer, especially for the online
magazine“New
Eastern Outlook”.
