Powerful groups abandon rebel coalition, join Jihadist al Nusra Front

The New York Times reports that those who signed the declaration included three groups aligned with the Western-backed opposition’s Supreme Military Council.

Mohannad al-Najjar, who is close to the leadership of one of the statement’s most powerful signers, Al Tawhid Brigade, told the Times that the group intended to send a message of disapproval to an exile leadership it believes has accomplished little.

“We found it was time to announce publicly and clearly what we are after, which is Shariah law for the country and to convey a message to the opposition coalition that it has been three years and they have never done any good for the Syrian uprising and the people suffering inside,” he said.

The decision by the eleven groups is an embarrassment to the Western backers of the Jarba-led moderate rebel coalition. France had scheduled a public event for Jarba in New York on Thursday (yesterday), on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, but the event was cancelled following the defection of the eleven rebel groups.

A State Department official told the Times that the United States was still trying to strengthen Jarba’s coalition and said that some of the factions that had broken with him might include extremists.

“We, of course, have seen the reports of an announcement by some Islamist opposition groups of their formation of a new political alliance,” the official said.

“As we’ve already said clearly before, we’ve been long working toward unity among the opposition, but we also have had extreme concerns about extremists.”

The deep fissures and political infighting inside the coalition of rebel groups have raised questions about the effectiveness of the coalition and its chances of forming a governing structure in Syria if Assad fell from power, or its ability to become a unified and cohesive partner in peace negotiations with the Assad regime, should an agreement be reached on launching such negotiations.

“At this stage, the political opposition does not have the credibility with or the leverage over the armed groups on the ground to enforce an agreement that the armed groups reject,” said Noah Bonsey, who studies the Syrian opposition for the International Crisis Group.

“You need two parties for an agreement, and there is no viable political alternative to the coalition,” he said, pointing to a growing a disconnect between the diplomatic efforts in New York and the reality across Syria.

The Times notes that inside Syria, rebel groups which were originally formed in response to the crackdowns by the Assad regime forces on political protests which began in in February 2011, gradually merged into larger groupings, some commanded and staffed by Islamists. The differences among the groups are not limited to differences over ideology and religion – the various militias are also divided along ethnic, regional, and clan lines, making it exceedingly difficult to bring them all under one command.

It should be noted that among the rebel groups who bolted out of the Jarba-led coalition, and who announced that they were aligning themselves with the al Qaeda-affiliated al Nusra Front, are secular groups with links to the coalition’s Supreme Military Council. Other groups among the eleven who bolted accept the leadership of al Nusra, but are bitterly opposed to another leading al Qaeda-affiliated Jihadi group — the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

ISIS has been gaining on al Nusra in the past few months as the main Jihadi group in Syria, thanks to a concerted effort by Qatar to supply its fighters with better arms. ISIS’s rise has been resented by Syrian Jihadists because most of ISIS fighters are foreigners from Arab countries, Chechnya, and Pakistan, and also because ISIS imposes strict Sharia law in the areas the group controls in a manner which is harsher and more punitive than that followed by al Nusra. Many in al Nusra believe that harsh ISIS practices, like public beheading, amputations, and flogging, are the result of the foreign fighters’ condescending and dismissive attitude toward Syrians, and their insensitivity to local mores and practices.

It thus appears that the move by the eleven groups was motivated less by ideological or religious considerations, and more by an assessment that strengthening the al Nusra-led side among the rebels would be a more effective way to bring down the Assad regime.

This is borne out by a rebel named Abu Bashir who told the Times that “The brigades that signed have political differences with Nusra, but we agree with them militarily since they want to topple the regime.”

Monzer Akbik, an aide to Jarba, said the leadership of the opposition was still studying the move by the eleven groups, but that it he was surprised at some of the groups which had signed on with Al Nusra Front.

“The Islamic project is clear and it is not our project,” he said. “We don’t have a religious project; we have a civil democratic project, and that needs to be clear.”