Mercenaries In Proxy War In Syria
By Countercurrents.org
24 September 2013
Countercurrents.org
Mercenaries from Russia 's North Caucasus region including Chechnya , Arab countries, Europe and Central Asia have been engaged in proxy war in Syria
Citing Russia 's Federal Security Service (FSB) first deputy director Sergei Smirnov a RIA Novosti report said: Some 300 to 400 Russians are fighting in the Syrian proxy war as soldiers of fortune. [1]
The Yaroslavl , September 20 datelined report said:
As these mercenaries return home, it will pose a “great danger” to Russian security.
After a board meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's anti-terrorism department Smirnov told reporters on Friday:
Recruiting mercenaries is a real practice, and preventing this kind of activity isn't mentioned in Russian law. “We still need to work on that,” he added.
Smirnov's estimate was significantly higher than one made in May by FSB head Alexander Bortnikov, who claimed that a total of about 200 mercenaries from Russia , Europe and Central Asia were fighting in the civil war.
Smirnov said that the SCO board meeting did not directly discuss the mercenary issue, but that Russian officials had privately talked about it with other member state representatives and found that they were also concerned.
The report said:
Last year, the Syrian government presented the UN Security Council with lists of hundreds of foreign nationals who had been killed fighting against government forces in Syria . The lists included mercenaries from Arab countries, Europe , and Russia 's North Caucasus region, including Chechnya .
Kerry's lie
A few weeks ago, Russian president Vladimir Putin accused US secretary of state John Kerry of “lying” in Congress by saying there was no al-Qaida in Syria .
“I watched the debates in Congress. A congressman asks Mr. Kerry: ‘Is al-Qaida there?' He says: ‘No, we are telling you responsibly that they are not,'” Putin said in televised comments.
Putin added that the Syrian rebels' “main combat unit is al-Nusra, an al-Qaida unit. They [the US ] are aware of that. … He [Kerry] lied. And he knows that he lied. This is sad.”
During a US congressional debate on Tuesday, Kerry said there is a “threat of a chemical weapons cache falling into the hands of al-Nusra,” known as al-Qaida's branch in Syria . He did not directly say that al-Qaida is in Syria .
Also, Kerry said at an August 15 meeting with Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari in Washington that there were “many al-Qaida leaders now operating in Syria ,” according to the transcript of the meeting posted on the department of state's website.
Putin pointed out that the United States expected that the Syrian rebels would defeat the pro-government troops and US military intervention on the ground would not be needed. But, he said, the Syrian government just a short time ago appeared likely to win the war.
“Why do they [the US ] say that not a single US soldier will appear in Syria ? Because they think this is unnecessary, that those militants will cope on their own. What they need is support by means and equipment they don't have – planes, missile equipment. This should be given to them. Well, they'll get it, right now,” he said.
In June, Putin said at a plenary meeting of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum that at least 600 people from Russia and Europe are fighting for the interventionists in Syria .
Al Qaida issue downplayed
White House drew a distinction between Islamist extremists and “moderate,” secular forces among the Syria interventionist force, insisting it can aid the latter without benefiting the former.
A Washington datelined report by Maria Young [2] said:
In testimony before a Senate panel, US secretary of state Kerry denied that al-Qaida and affiliated Islamist forces had taken full control of the Syrian opposition, saying the number of fighters under the extremist al-Nusra Front linked to al-Qaida were “actually lower” today than in the past.
Instead, Kerry said, the Syrian opposition as a whole “has increasingly become more defined by its moderation, more defined by the breadth of its membership and more defined by its adherence to some … democratic process.”
Critics in the US and abroad, notably in Russia , have underscored the presence of al-Qaida and other Islamist forces among the Syrian interventionist force.
But Kerry and other top officials in the administration of US president Barack Obama have sought to attenuate fears that such a move would strengthen al-Qaida.
Efforts by Kerry and other US officials to minimize the role of Islamist extremists in the Syrian opposition have been derided by critics including Russian president Putin.
The link between a military strike on select regime targets and the resulting strengthening of al-Qaida in Syria is “at best, dubious,” said Steven Heydemann, a special advisor on Middle East Initiatives at the US Institute of Peace (USIP), a nonpartisan institution funded by Congress to support US efforts to manage international conflict without violence.
“Militant Islamist armed groups in Syria have benefitted from the perception that the West does not care about what happens in Syria and does not support the opposition. A shift in US policy in which limited strikes are combined with more active support for the moderate opposition is a threat to al-Qaida's power,” Heydemann wrote in a question-and-answer statement.
However other experts, including prominent US politicians, are less certain.
“We should be focused on defending the United States of America . That's why young men and women sign up to join the military. Not to, as you know, serve as al-Qaida's air force,” the ultra-conservative Breitbart News internet website quoted Senator Ted Cruz, an influential Republican.
“I'll give you one of the simplest principles of foreign policy that we ought to be following: Don't give weapons to people who hate you. Don't give weapons to people who want to kill you," Cruz said.
That view was echoed by other experts who said any outside military action against the Assad regime would inevitably bolster his opponents, including Islamist extremists.
“The more the regime is weakened, the more the opposition gains,” said Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow and Middle East policy expert at Brookings, a Washington-based think tank.
“Since the opposition includes a strong and growing al-Qaida component, such an approach could mean inadvertently helping that organization,” Riedel said in an article published in Al-Monitor, a website that covers news about the Middle East .
“Extremists groups benefit from the lack of international action, while moderate groups are marginalized,” said a representative from the US-based National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, which supports the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighting in Syria .
Riedel said the United States will have to address al-Qaida's presence in Syria one way or the other.
“Whatever policy Congress endorses, it should include a robust effort to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Syria before it becomes an even greater threat to US interests,” he said.
A Survey Finding
Citing a new study by London-based defense consultancy IHS Jane's a Moscow datelined report [3] said:
Of the 100,000 rebels battling the Syrian government, one-tenth is part of factions linked to al-Qaida.
The study finding has been reported by British newspaper The Telegraph.
The report said:
Another third comprise local hardline Islamists, and yet another third belong to groups with a moderate Islamic character.
The study is based on intelligence assessments and interviews with Syrian activists and militants.
The study report said:
Only a minority of the rebels are part of secular groups.
It added that the rebels are fractured into about a thousand bands, though many are interconnected and operate under the aegis of larger groups.
Civil strife in Syria began in March 2011 as a peaceful secular protest, and armed resistance to the regime was initially led by secular groups such as the Free Syrian Army, which comprised many defectors from government forces.
But al-Qaida-linked groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant have been pushing for domination over other rebel factions, the newspaper said.
The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant has reportedly clashed with Free Syrian Army groups in recent months.
Source:
[1] 20/09/2013 , “ Hundreds of Russians Fighting as Mercenaries in Syria – FSB”,
[2] RIA Novosti, 05/09/2013 , “US Downplays Concerns About Al-Qaida in Syria ”, http://en.rian.ru/world/20130905/183172480/US-Downplays-Concerns-About-Al-Qaida-in-Syria.html
[3] RIA Novosti, 16/09/2013 , “10% of Syrian Rebels Linked to Al-Qaida – Study”,
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