Assad finds pretext for killing in ISIS extremists, activist says
July 21, 2013 “We have abandoned Bashar and his oppression, […]
21 July 2013
July 21, 2013
“We have abandoned Bashar and his oppression, and come into something even more oppressive,” says media activist Abu Jaffer al-Mogharbel about the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham, an al-Qaeda linked jihadist group. In an interview with Abdulrahman al-Masri, Abu Jaffer says that ISIS extremists, like the Iraqi emir accused of assassinating an FSA commander in Latakia, present the regime with the pretext it needs to carry out wanton shelling of its own citizens. “Islam is innocent of the actions of these men,” adds Al Mogharbel, from his home in Homs.
Q: What is the people’s opinion today about the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham?
A: The people have grown to hate even hearing news about the shameful assassinations (of Abu Baseer in Latakia, for example) or the arrests of activists at the hands of these extremist groups. They demand the FSA Joint Command evict these extremists from their homes and they demand that the Free Army take control, saying, “we abandoned Bashar and his oppression, and we came into something more oppressive.”
Q: Will tension between the Free Army and the State of Iraq and Sham continue? What does the future have in store for the two factions?
A: The regime strives to exacerbate disputes among the people so that there is a pretext, in global opinion, of terrorist groups and Islamist extremists, here meaning the Free Army (terrorists) and the Islamic State (extremists). Once the regime succeeds in sowing discord and difference between them, it will arrive at the second phase after this attempt to instill sectarianism, and Syria will be in civil war, with distant countries going to war for the long haul. In this scenario, the regime remains in power holding a carrot on a stick.
Q: What can you tell us about Abu Ayman, the ISIS emir accused of murdering FSA commander Kemal Hamami?
A: He has shown us what the regime wants – extremist rule under the pretext of Islam – but Islam is innocent of the actions of these men.
When someone like the emir of the Islamic State comes, carrying in his pocket agendas that every Arab tyrant uses as a pretext for killing people and revolutionaries, he does a service for the regime. Then he will have given it what it wishes for in order to kill people, whether by planes or artillery, under the pretext of radical terrorist activity in Syria. He is a “scarecrow” to the West, so that it will not intervene.