Saudia Arabia and US flood Syria with foreign Mercenaries

Foreign jihadists swell rebel ranks in Syria
26 July, 2012 – Al Akhbar

In restive northwest Syria, the insurgency has found an unlikely new partner in the struggle against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad: foreign Islamists who are arriving in large numbers.

But rather than adopt the revolt’s calls for democracy and the fall of a dictatorial regime, such jihadists have taken a sectarian stance, promoting hatred against the minority Alawi sect, which they consider as “apostates.”

At the Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey, seized by Islamist militants last week, dozens of men claimed to have traveled from several Arab and Muslim countries.

Some said they were from Algeria, others claimed to be from Morocco, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia. A few say they are from even farther away, including insurgent hotbeds such as Chechnya and Somalia.

From the start of the 16-month uprising – which has grown into an armed insurgency backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey – the Syrian regime has claimed rebels were hosting al-Qaeda fighters, and that the revolt was a foreign conspiracy.

It is unclear just how many foreign jihadist fighters have entered the country.

What is clear is that Syria’s rebels do not want to admit that the jihadist phenomenon exists.

In the central province of Hama, a rebel who identifies himself as Abu Ammar says he commands a 1,200-strong battalion.

“We will never let al-Qaeda take root here – we’ll kill them if they try,” he says. “The revolution belongs to the Syrians.”

But eyewitness accounts suggest those fighters are coming whether he likes it or not, some of them likely to have been spurred by militant websites urging Islamists to join the uprising. …more