"The U.S. and its allies have held direct talks with key Islamist militias in Syria, Western officials say, aiming to undercut al Qaeda while acknowledging that religious fighters long shunned by Washington have gained on the battlefield. At the same time, Saudi Arabia is taking its own outreach further, moving to directly arm and fund one of the Islamist groups, the Army of Islam, despite U.S. qualms.... Some officials in Western capitals remain wary about courting these groups, whose ultimate goal is to establish a state ruled by Islamic law, or Shariah, in Syria.... The Saudis and the West are pivoting toward a newly created coalition of religious militias called the Islamic Front, which excludes the main al Qaeda-linked groups fighting in Syria—the Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham, known as ISIS..."The "despite U.S. qualms" line is a lie. The US has never had any qualms about supporting Al-Qaeda terrorists at the expense of others. The U.S. is directly guiding Saudi Arabia's policy of arming Jihadist terrorists in Syria, while pretending in the media that this strategy is Saudi-inspired. They think the world is full of fools. But they're mistaken.
2. An excerpt from, "Syria jihadists kidnap 50 Kurds: activists" The Daily Star, December 5:
Jihadists in northern Syria have kidnapped more than 50 Kurds in the past three days, in the second such case of mass hostage-taking since July, a monitoring group said Thursday.Anything that the Britain-based group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights puts out about developments and events in Syria is suspect because it is not a professional outlet. The guy in charge of this operation makes a lot of shit up, spreading rumours and falsehoods, like the number of killed by Assad's troops, so take the history of the dishonest statements of this organization into consideration when reading this article.
The kidnappings come months into major battles for control of several parts of northern Syria that have pitted Kurdish fighters against jihadists, chiefly the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
"In the past three days, ISIL has kidnapped at least 51 Kurds in the towns of Minbej and Jarablus," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Among the hostages were nine children and a woman, said the Britain-based group, adding that there was no information on where they had been taken.
3. An excerpt from, "E.U. security officials note increased flow of fighters to Syria's civil war" by Michael Birnbaum, The Washington Post, December 5:
European officials said they were stunned by the speed of the radicalization and flow of their citizens to Syria, and some officials urged new measures, such as collecting and sharing more airline passenger information, in an effort to slow the migration.European officials are feigning concern over this dangerous development. They know exactly what they are doing. The reason for the radicalization of Muslims in Europe and why they are going to Syria to impose their version of Islam on the unwilling inhabitants of that country is because of the power and reach of state-funded mosques in Europe in Muslim communities, mainly in France and England. Islamic preachers on the payroll of the British and French intelligence agencies have been told to prepare their congregations for Jihad and send them to Syria. And the number of French Jihadists going to Syria is way more than 184, the number given by French Interior Minister Manuel Valls. It's more likely to be in the range of the thousands.
“Before summer, on the part of France, there were less than 100 French residents who were in Syria. At the moment that I’m speaking, it’s more than 180; 184 to be precise,” French Interior Minister Manuel Valls told reporters in Brussels. And “most individuals have indicated their willingness to fight in organizations close to al-Qaeda,” he added.
Much of the radicalization is taking place online, he said, and in France, 20 percent of those who have gone to Syria have been converts to Islam.
“What we note is the rapidity of the phenomenon,” he said.
