waiting for the tomahawks (5th sept 2013)

7/27/2019 Waiting for the Tomahawks (5th Sept 2013)

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Sept 2013

W W W . T H E C S S P O I N T . C O M

Waiting for the TomahawksBY HANIA MOURTADA

How do Syria’s rebels feel about a U.S. bombing campaign against ssad? BEIRUT, Lebanon — When President Barack Obama first dangled the

possibility of launching a punitive military strike against the Syrian regime,

he may have been caught off balance by the reaction of some of Bashar al-

Assad's staunchest opponents. Rather than gleefully welcoming support from

the world's biggest superpower, some Islamist rebels worry that the United

States isn't really coming for Assad -- it's coming for them.

"America is going to strike empty bases that are useless to the regime and

this cosmetic strike will then be used as a front to go after us," said Suhaib,

a 30-year-old fighter with the al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, in a Skype

interview. "The Americans decided to destroy airports, arms and munitions

factories, and scientific research centers when they realized that the

honorable revolutionaries of the Free Syrian Army and the jihadists of the

Islamist factions are on the verge of seizing them."

If there is one thing that Syria's diverse armed factions converge around, it's

the nagging feeling that the United States wants to pull a fast one on them.

In extensive interviews, several rank-and-file fighters and high-ranking

commanders expressed the fear that U.S. forces will sweep in at the very

last moment, "stealing" the hard-fought Syrian revolution from them after all

sides are sufficiently weakened and installing a pliable, hand-picked

leadership in Damascus.

"There was never a single day in my entire life where I ever felt like I could

trust the Americans or the West in general," said Abu Obaida, who leads a



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Sept 2013


small battalion within the Ahrar al-Sham movement, a countrywide jihadist

group that nevertheless maintains close ties to mainstream rebel groups.

"This complete lack of trust comes from the strike on Iraq ... American

forces seized the oil, brainwashed people's minds, took over state

institutions, and they went in based on a pretext."

He scoffs at Obama's humanitarian arguments for embroiling the United

States in the Syria conflict. With hundreds of people dying every day, he

finds it odd that America would be moved to act by a single chemical

weapons attack. It is merely an affectation, he believes, to dampen

Americans' outrage about embroiling them in yet another military campaignin the Middle East.

"They left us to die for two years," he says. "So can I ask: What difference is

there if there's blood or not? It is not a moral imperative for them. We all

know that."

The reaction of Abu Obaida and like-minded fighters, however, is just one

aspect of the diverse rebel response to the prospect of U.S. military

intervention in Syria. While it is difficult to find a single rebel fighter who is

not skeptical of American overtures, most moderate Free Syrian Army (FSA)

commanders welcome a U.S. military strike as the only potential salvation

from the horrors of the Syrian regime's crackdown.

These divergent opinions have become a microcosm of the larger challenges

facing the sprawling armed opposition. While a U.S. strike may present therebels with an unprecedented military opportunity, the fractured movement

has seemingly failed to organize a coordinated response.

Even some of the rebel groups who were on the front lines of the Aug. 21

chemical weapons attack, which the United States says killed over 1,400



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people, are ambivalent about U.S. military intervention. Liwa al-Islam, a

Salafist group that operates in the eastern Damascus suburbs, released a

statement that warned darkly of the true American intentions behind

intervening in Syria.

waiting for the tomahawks (5th sept 2013)

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