[SEE: ISIS+Al-Nusra Front? Islamists reportedly join forces, new threat against West issued ]
Al-Nusra Leader Warns Syria Rebels Against Siding With West
Mon, 29th Sep 2014 06:37
Cairo (Alliance News) – The leader of an al-Qaeda affiliate targeted in US airstrikes in Syria Sunday warned other rebel groups not to side with Western countries.
“I advise and warn the sincere fighting groups on the ground: do not allow the West and America to exploit the injustice that the Islamic State has done to you,” Abu Mohammed al-Jaulani, head of the al-Nusra Front, said in an audio message released on jihadist websites.
“Do not let that injustice lead any of you to follow the West or participate in its alliance of evil,” al-Jaulani said, saying that the goal of the US was to enlist Syrian rebels in a “secularist project” or bring about a settlement with the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Al-Nusra was hit by US airstrikes Tuesday, the same day the US and allies launched raids against the Islamic State group which split from al-Qaeda last year and has seized swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq.
The US Congress has also authorized the equipping and training of moderate Syrian rebel groups who are to fight Islamic State militants on the ground.
But even some moderate rebel groups have reacted angrily to the strikes against al-Nusra, asking why they are not receiving more military aid and arguing that regime forces should also be targeted.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said al-Jaulani’s group lost 57 fighters in the raids. The US said it was targeting a network of al-Qaeda veterans who were preparing overseas attacks.
Al-Jaulani said al-Nusra’s fight against the Syrian regime would be weakened by the strikes but it would not give up.
But his message gave no hint of any reconciliation with the Islamic State, which has battled other rebels since the beginning of the year as it seeks to impose its sole authority in areas outside government control.
Instead, he described it as having given the West a “justification” for intervention in Syria.
US President Barack Obama acknowledged in an interview with US broadcaster CBS that the US had underestimated the rise of the Islamic State group.
Obama blamed instability in Syria for giving extremists space to thrive. In an interview with the CBS programme 60 Minutes, he said his director of national intelligence already had acknowledged that US intelligence underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.
He also said the US had overestimated the ability of the Iraqi military to fend off Islamic State militants.
“During the chaos of the Syrian civil war, where essentially you had huge swathes of the country that are completely ungoverned, they were able to reconstitute themselves and take advantage of that chaos,” Obama said.
The group has been able to attract foreign fighters from Europe, the US, Australia and parts of the Muslim world, converging on Syria, he said.
“And so this became ground zero for jihadists around the world,” he said, adding that recruitment efforts have been aided by a “very savvy” social media campaign.
He also blamed remnants of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s military for lending some “traditional military capacity” to the terrorist group.
“That’s why it’s so important for us to recognize part of our solution here is gonna be military,” he said.
The US is assisting Iraq in “a very real battle on their soil,” Obama said.
“This is not America against ISIL,” he said, describing it instead as America “assisting” to make sure that the Iraqis can “take care of their business.”
He again described the Islamic State as a “cancer” in the Muslim world.
“The Iraqis have to be willing to fight,” he said. “Shia, Sunnis and Kurds, alongside each other against this cancer.”
Politically, Iraq, Syria and other countries have to learn tolerance. They must “think about what political accommodation means,” he said, adding it’s “not something that will happen overnight.”
The current effort to fight the Islamic State group is focused on destroying their command and control, weapons and fuel and cutting off their financing the flow of foreign fighters.
But the president said a political solution is necessary for lasting peace.
Copyright dpa
Alliance News
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