Somehow I missed this tidbit of news that came out a few days ago. The representative of Al Qaida Senior Leadership in Syria and Ayman al Zawahiri's intermediary in the conflict, Abu Khalid al Suri, was killed in a suicide attack in Aleppo, Syria. Suri, aka Mohammad Bahaiah, had also established Ahrar al Sham, one of the more successful and powerful rebel organizations in Syria. While no one has claimed responsibility, blame has been quickly placed on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS/AQI/ISI/I love doing this).
The Al Nusrah Front, the organization ISIL attempted to claim and absorb, has issued an ultimatum to ISIL: stop attacking rebel organizations or we're kicking your ass out of Syria and Iraq. Strong words. I like it. The Assad regime has been a small thorn in the side of the United States but if Assad is overthrown, an extremist government would most likely take his place, and that would be much worse. I don't want Assad to come out of this thing victorious, but I certainly don't want Al Nusrah, ISIS, or any of the other myriad of extremist groups to gain victory either. If these groups fight amongst themselves enough, there's hope the moderate Free Syrian Army can claim some sort of victory. But hope is never a good course of action.
It reminds me all a bit of what I've read on the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Insurgents under Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his Hezb-i Islami Gulbuddin organization often fought more with the other mujahedeen groups than they did against the Soviets or the Afghan government. For reasons I'll never understand, Pakistan backed Hekmatyar over the other mujahedeen and so most of the CIA's funds to arm the insurgency went to HiG. These days HiG is still around, a minor annoyance to ISAF, and they still spend more time fighting the Taliban and Haqqani than they do the coalition or Afghan security forces.
Keep killing each other gentlemen, we'll wait.
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