Syria: Utilizing Al Qaeda - The al-Assad Regime Defaming Their Reputation
13 January 2013By Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed
This must have been one of the few instances in which
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been able to
laugh; namely after watching members of a Syrian
extremist group on an Arab television channel
pledging, or rather threatening, to establish a
radical Islamist regime to replace his own. This
interview was more than enough to frighten the already
hesitant and anxious countries, confirming the stories
put forward by the Assad regime. These stories, in
turn, were backed by Russian politicians, who have
said that the West will regret overthrowing the
Damascus regime as this represents a repeat of the
same mistake made in Afghanistan and will ultimately
result in a new war being waged, but this time to
fight Al Qaeda in Syria. Simultaneously, we see the
French today waging one of their largest African
military campaigns in northern Mali to fight extremist
groups there.
There can be no doubt that the West, in addition to
some Arabs, are afraid that the Syrian revolution will
turn into another Afghanistan especially in light of
the flow of jihadists into the country to take part in
the combat. Therefore, instead of supporting the
Syrian rebels and putting an end to the Assad regime's
crimes, they are merely watching the fighting and
monitoring these extremist groups.
The Syrian regime wants the West to accept the idea
that the Assad regime is a guarantor for stability and
a safety valve against the threat of these terrorist
groups. Unfortunately, these terrorist groups do
exist; some of them were formed by the Assad regime
itself for this specific purpose, whilst Damascus is
also publicizing and propagating the actions and
threat represented by other groups to create fear
regarding the possibility of another Afghanistan.
The regime previously used precisely the same tactic
when facing intense international pressure following
its crimes in Lebanon. In November 2008, Syria
claimed-via the official state news agency SANA-that
the extremist Fatah al-Islam organization detonated a
car-bomb in Damascus.
The SANA report also claimed that Lebanon's
anti-Syrian Future Movement was behind this terrorist
organization and that the suicide bomber who carried
out this operation was a Saudi national! Of course,
nobody believed this Syrian lie because the Lebanese
Future Movement-represented at the time by Prime
Minister Fouad Siniora-had led the war against Fatah
al-Islam at the Nahr al-Bared camp.
You can be sure that some members of extremist groups
in Syria were specifically released from Assad's
prisons to swell their movement's ranks and take part
in the fighting. The presence of these groups is meant
to serve as proof that the revolution is led by
terrorist groups, some of whom in reality are
affiliate to Al Qaeda and want to raise the terrorist
organization's black flag over Syria. However, the
vast majority of Syria's rebels belong to the Free
Syrian Army (FSA), and the al-Assad regime wants to
defame their reputation and use them to intimidate
Arab and Western countries. Therefore it is in the
regime's interests to circulate images, videos and
stories of these extremist groups, hiding the fact
that they only began participating in the uprising
approximately ten months ago and that they only
represent a tiny minority of the Syrian revolution.
Al Rashed is the general manager of Al -Arabiya
television. He is also the former editor-in-chief of
Asharq Al- Awsat, and the leading Arabic weekly
magazine, Al Majalla. He is also a senior Columnist in
the daily newspapers of Al Madina and Al Bilad. He is
a US post-graduate degree in mass communications. He
has been a guest on many TV current affairs programs.
He is currently based in Dubai.
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