I've been wondering why that tyrant Assad complains, but doesn't seem to be able to control ISIS. Is he inept? Does he "need western help"?
Wikipedia tells me he is playing a game of "hey westerners don't look at me, lookie over there" to distract from his civil war. I'm interpreting that he is allowing ISIS to flourish because it actually benefits him. (I didn't cut paste about his oil connections with ISIS - just TMI)
Also note the last paragraph that Turkey, (our lovely NATO ally) Saudi Arabia and Qatar are backing al-Qaeda based al-Nusra front.
I have no words for this ME clusterf*ck.
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Excerpt from Bashar al-Assad's Wikipedia:
The UKs Ambassador to the United Nations Mark Lyall Grant concluded at the outset of the American-led coalition intervention in Syria that "
ISIS is a monster that the Frankenstein of Assad has largely created".[175]
French President Francois Hollande stated regarding the airstrikes, "
Assad cannot be a partner in the fight against terrorism, he is the de facto ally of jihadists".[176]
Analyst Noah Bonsey of the International Crisis Group has suggested that ISIL are politically expedient for Assad, as "the threat of ISIS provides a way out [for Assad] because the
regime believes that over time the U.S. and other countries backing the opposition will eventually conclude that the regime is a necessary partner on the ground in confronting this jihadi threat", while Robin Wright of the Middle East studies at the Wilson Center has stated "the outside worlds decision to focus on ISIS has ironically lessened the pressure on Assad. And hes getting away literally with murder on a daily basis".[177]
In May 2015, Mario About Zeid of the Carnegie Middle East Center stated that the recent Hezbollah offensive "has exposed the reality of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
(ISIL) in Qalamoun; that it is operated by the Syrian regime's intelligence",
after ISIL in the region engaged in probing attacks against FSA units at the outset of the fighting.[178]
On 1 June 2015, the United States stated that the Assad regime was "making air-strikes in support" of an ISIL advance on Syrian opposition positions north of Aleppo.[179]
Referring to the same ISIL offensive, the president of the Syrian National Coalition Khaled Koja
accused Assad of acting "as an air force for ISIS",[180]
with the Defence Minister of the SNC Salim Idris stating that approximately
180 Assad regime officers were serving in ISIS and coordinating the group's attacks with the Syrian Arab Army.[181]
Christopher Kozak of the Institute for the Study of War states that "
Assad sees the defeat of ISIS in the long term and prioritizes in the more short-and medium-term, trying to cripple the more mainline Syrian opposition [...] ISIS is a threat that lots of people can rally around and even if the regime trades
territory that was in rebel hands over to ISIS control, that weakens the opposition, which has more legitimacy [than ISIS]".[182]
A media consultant who works directly for Assad
threatened the Druze community in Suwayda with allowing ISIL to attack them if they refused to let their sons join the Syrian Arab Army; the Druze continued to refuse to be associated with the Assad regime, and ISIL attacks subsequently occurred soon after in northern Suwayda.[183]
As of 2015, Assad's regional main opponents,
Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, are openly backing the Army of Conquest, an umbrella rebel group that reportedly includes an al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra Front and another Salafi coalition known as Ahrar ash-Sham.[184][185][186] In the course of the conflict, ISIL has repeatedly massacred pro-government Alawite civilians and executed captured Syrian Alawite soldiers.[187][188] ISIL, al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front and affiliated jihadist groups reportedly took the lead in an offensive on Alawite villages in Latakia Governorate of Syria in August 2013.[187][189]
Link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bashar_al-Assad
