Jabhat Al-Nusra

Jabhat Al-Nusra is a Salafist fighting group in Syria, formed in late 2011 and allied with - but rejecting the perceived pro-West constraints on - the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The group is also called Al-Nusra Front (Arabic: جبهة النصرة لأهل الشام‎ Ansar al-Jebhat al-Nusra li-Ahl al-Sham, meaning: "Supporters of the Front for Victory of the People of Syria") and bears the flag shown at right. Generally considered one of the most effective and best-supported groups in the struggle against Syria's government (sometimes called "Syria's Best Rebel Fighters"), they became infamous for gross violations of Human Rights and were listed by the United States as a terrorist organization - in fact, as a different name for the organisation also known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq - in December 2012.

Goals
A January 2013 "strategic briefing" by Noman Benotman and Roisin Blake of the anti-extremist think-tank Quilliam Foundation gives a quite detailed report of origins, goals and strategy of the organization. In February 2013 a leading Jihadi internet forum produced a "comprehensive strategy for Syria" paper in a collaborative effort which mentions Al-Nusra several times as "our brothers on the ground" and shines further light on ideology, goals and strategy. It was translated into English by Cole Bunzel of the monitoring site "Jihadica" in late February.

Contrary to groups like the FSA, the fall of the Assad government is only a short-term goal for Al Nusra, while the end-goal is to establish an Islamist caliphate in all of what they call Al-Sham - not the modern Syria in the borders defined by the Sykes-Picot-Agreement, but basically the whole Levant including Jordan, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine and Iraq, and finally the whole Muslim world. On this way, even groups like the Muslim Brotherhood are seen as a puppet force of the "Crusader" conspiracy and called "secular Islamists" or pseudo-Muslims and counted among the enemies of the "pure creed".

An Effective Force
The New York Times reported how rebel fighters had come to value Al-Nusra "because of its fighters’ bravery and reliable supply of money and arms." Further, they reported the Front "has never come under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, shunning the Western aid and input that other groups have sought, but it coordinates closely with many who do."

(more forthcoming...)

A Criminal Force
The group has been identified as involved in a number of heinous and criminal acts across Syria, with a handy partial list at the Wikipedia page. Jabhat Al-Nusra was one of the few groups to explicitly refuse recognizing UN envoy Brahimi's late October Eid Al-Adha cease-fire proposal, to which both the government and the FSA agreed. The cease-fire was shattered almost immediately by, among other things, terrorist car bombings in Damascus thought to be carried out by the Front. They have claimed responsibility for a vast majority of the car bombings, suicide and otherwise, that have been carried out so far in the Syrian war.

Al-Nusra were described as prominent in the audacious repeated assaults on the border town of Ras Al-Ayn. They were involved in the destruction of an Al-Ikhbaria TV station near Damascus, and later the execution of a news presenter. Al-Nusra were blamed by locals and officials for the twisted Haswiyeh Massacre, also of Jan. 15, in Homs. It seems they operated the alleged bakery (a shipping center, actually) targeted in the Halfaya Bakery Bombing near Hama. They seem to be behind the killing of Shi'ite guards, executives, and workers at the Syrian Petroleum Company's center in Al-Shaddadi, Hasakah province, in mid-February 2012 (see Al-Shaddadi Petroluem Company Massacre)

Jabhat Al-Nusra has been especially active in and around Syria's largest city of Aleppo in the north. They documented themselves executing dozens of army soldiers there in September, 2012. They later declared a "no-fly zone" over Aleppo, threatening to shoot down commercial airliners if they felt they carried weapons. They've been blamed for the Aleppo University Attack of Jan. 15, 2013 (perhaps in part to help underscore the importance of their "no-fly zone"). They were blamed by some for the Queiq River Massacre, in which some 80 or more local men and boys were executed and found in a rebel-held stretch of the Queiq river in Aleppo in January, 2013.

These are examples, and nothing like a comprehensive list.

Balancing Act
There is a widespread but not necessarily true belief that Syria's rebels turn or will turn to Islamic extremist groups like Jabhat Al-Nusra, due to a lack of Western support, a mangled "Jihad vs. McWorld" conception. The young boy in Syria seen at left, partaking in an early December demonstration in Isqat (far north), apparently understands the perceived problem (unless he didn't really make the sign).

However, it's entirely conceivable, to put it mildly, for the opposition in whole to take the support of both the West and the Jihadists, and use them together for an end more in line with the goals of one side or the other. All the talk of balance might be nothing more than a clever opposition playing supporters off against each other to accelerate a competition of support they can reap profitably on both ends.

US Listing as a Terrorist Group
The decision to list the Front as a terrorist organization, thus criminalizing privite support for the group, was announced in late November, during the lead-up to the "Friends of Syria" meeting set for December 12, 2012 in Marrakesh, Morocco. The actual listing by the U.S. State Department came on December 10, following immediately president Obama's extension of recognition to the new Rebel council as the legitimate representatives of the Syrian people. The Christian Science Monitor reported on the move made with "lightning speed":
 * The speed with which the US government moved to designate a fairly new group that has never attacked US interests and is engaged in fighting a regime that successive administrations have demonized is evidence of the strange bedfellows and overlapping agendas that make the Syrian civil war so explosive.

The State Department confirmed earlier accusations that Jabhat Al-Nusra was a direct offshoot of Al Qaeda in Iraq. One of its more prominent members killed in fighting in January, 2013, was claimed by Jordanian Salafists as a brother-in-law of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, AQI's onetime leader.

Protest Against the Listing
Many rebels who'd been fighting with Al-Nusra, enjoying its often-stunning successes, and not being too upset with its cruel excesses, voiced displeasure with the decision and protested. As the New York Times reported:
 * ''But a growing number of anti-government groups — including fighters in the loose-knit Free Syrian Army that the United States is trying to bolster — have signed petitions or posted statements online in recent days expressing support for the Nusra Front. In keeping with a tradition throughout the uprising of choosing themes for Friday protests, the biggest day for demonstrations because it coincides with Friday Prayer, many called for this Friday’s title to be “No to American intervention — we are all Jabhet al-Nusra.”

Lindey Hilsum, Channel 4 (UK) wrote on the more official response:
 * “There is nothing wrong with fighting in the name of Islam,” said the coalition leader, Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, a moderate imam, in his speech to assembled ministers and diplomats. He requested the Americans to reconsider their decision.


 * “We will work with everybody on the ground who has an agenda which includes ending the suffering of the Syrian people,” said Yaser Tabbara, a coalition spokesman. “If al-Nusra is on the same page, they will be dealt with using dialogue and containment.”

Guardian reporter Martin Chulov, a reliable ally of the rebels all along, expressed shock at the protests with the following tweet:
 * Choking on coffees in Marrakesh: #Syrian oppn leader Khatib asks US to reverse decisn to brand Jabhat al-lNusra terrorists #news

Turkish officials reportedly complained on January 17 that the front should not have been declared terrorists until after the war was over.
 * Turkey also criticized the timing of Washington’s decision to declare the Jabhat al-Nusra front, an Islamist group at the forefront of the fight against the Syrian government, as a terrorist organization ... while noting U.S. support for Turkey’s efforts to combat terrorism and plans on stopping terrorism financing. This ironic set of statements came as the Turks planned another enabled border-crossing at Ras Al-Ayn, with Al-Nusrah jihadists driving tanks into the Kurdish town once again on the 18th,, and at the same time Turkey arrested 15 prominent lawyers and human rights activists under counter-terrorism laws, allegedly as part of a crackdown on some leftist group.

Created by the Syrian Government?
A rather strange article by Hazem Al-Amin (from Al-Hayat, Jan. 13, 2013, translated and re-posted by Al-Arabiya Jan. 20) seems to make a case that Jabhat Al-Nusra pre-dates the Syrian uprising by decades, and is essentially a creation of the Syrian government, as a "trap" for the opposition. It's quite the conspiracy theory, with no apparent support except arguing that in years past the same was done with "al-Talea" to ensare the Muslim Brotherhood. Some excerpts:
 * Any attempt at identifying al-Nusra Front with the revolution is supported by the way facts on the grounds are pushed to that direction. The regime has always been doing that so that it could establish al-Nusra as the only available alternative in case the Syrians decide to demand change.


 * Today the facts that are being revealed prove that the Syrian regime has to be toppled as soon as possible. Among those facts is the way the regime used al-Nusra and similar groups in its conflict with the Syrian people in the 1970s and 1980s as well as in its regional wars, especially with militant networks in Iraq, throughout the past decade. Now it is back to the same strategy through creating of al-Nusra the only opposition faction. Add to this the return of the militants previously sent to Iraq to fight the Syrian regime together with other fighters from Iraq and other countries.


 * The model of al-Nusra has always served the Syrian regime’s ends and which always revolve around stripping the conflict of its political dimension.

An awful lot of people who seem opposed to the government (regime) have been suckered, if Mr. Al-Amin is the slightest bit correct. All other evidence suggests he is not.