Most Americans are well aware of a group named Al-Qaeda….in case the mind is going….that is the group founded by Osama and was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Keep that in mind……
Now we move to Syria…..there is an affiliate of AQ operating in the country…Jabbat al-Nusra…at times they are at odds with the barbarous bunch called ISIS…..there is also reports that sya as horrible as ISIS is al-Nusra is more dangerous……
Hardly a day goes by without news of the progress being made in the war on ISIS in Iraq and Syria. In recent months, American-backed forces have secured much of the Syrian-Turkish border, recaptured Ramadi, and stemmed the flow of fighters and supplies to the terror group’s capital cities of Raqqa and Mosul.But momentum is not the same as winning, and the U.S. has fallen into a number of traps in Iraq and Syria — the most deadly of which has been set by al Qaeda.Jabhat al-Nusra, al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, is more dangerous than ISIS — and while the two groups share the common goal of establishing a global caliphate, they are using different means to achieve it.
Al-Nusra first emerged in January 2012, 10 months after the start of anti-government protests that were brutally repressed by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, leading to a now more than five-year-old multi-sided conflict.
The group is an offshoot of the Islamic State in Iraq, Al-Qaeda’s former affiliate in the country, in which Jolani was a leading figure in Nineveh province, a jihadist stronghold in the north.
In April 2013, Al-Nusra refused to join up with IS and pledged allegiance instead to Al-Qaeda head Ayman al-Zawahiri, who later proclaimed Al-Nusra the only branch of Al-Qaeda in Syria.
Believing that their public status as al-Qaeda’s formal “affiliate” in Syria has made them a target, the Nusra Front is announcing its intention to rebrand as the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, or Sham Liberation Front, which itself won’t officially be affiliated with al-Qaeda’s parent organization.
More info on al-Nusra……
Source: Everything You Need To Know About the New Nusra Front | TIME
All this drama is a ruse…..it has been planned for awhile to take the heat off the group……
….. the ruse is transparent, since al-Qaeda’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri released a public audio statement only back in May suggesting Nusra could make a public break with al-Qaeda as a way to unify Islamists to form an “emirate” to rival ISIS. Whatever the reason, there is no suggestion this is going to leave Nusra, or whatever it calls itself, as anything but Syria’s al-Qaeda.
Nothing has changed…the group will still be as barbarous as usual…the only purpose of this “switch” is to try and lessen the attacks by the US and others with the hope it can survive past this conflict.
Jabhat al-Nusra, or JAN, is many things at the same time. It includes nationalists, nationalist-Islamists, Islamists, Syrians, non-Syrians, elements who reject global terrorism, global terrorists, hardliners, relative moderates, and many other ideological strains. The cement holding this organization together is composed of two parts: Opposing Assad, and an organizational structure that is able to provide an ideological frame, a political platform, a plan of action and operational structure, a disciplinary system, and the means to survive and continue the fight.
Attempts to reduce JAN to ISIL part deux are mistaken insofar as they neglect structural and ideological differences between the two groups. This is not to say that JAN is more or less dangerous than ISIL. It is to say that the two groups are completely different along both ideological and organizational lines. Overlooking those differences is natural in public opinion, but it is not suitable for experts or policy makers, as in the field of fighting terrorism, every detail matters.
Source: The Future of Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria | Middle East Briefing
Same game….different name?
Distancing itself from the ambitions of its sponsor is both good politics and may be good for Syrians.
And yet, the announcement has been received internationally with weary scepticism and a level of cynical dismissiveness that fails to understand the opportunity this decision represents.
The principal Western response has been that al-Nusra Front leadership’s decision is merely cosmetic, designed to remove itself from the list of groups subject to bombardment. This, of course may be true but it misses the point.
Source: Tough choices ahead as al-Nusra splits from al-Qaeda – Al Jazeera English