MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

For peaceful purposes. If you’re not fighting for the cause of “Allah” then you’re fighting for freedom. And if you’re fighting for freedom, then you’re fighting against the cause of “Allah” …

Qur’an Sura 18:26, “[Allah] maketh none to share in his government.”

By Jamie Dettmer, The Daily Beast – “A top Free Syrian Army commander’s slaying by al Qaeda-linked jihadists is just the latest in a string of murders that has triggered a defection crisis in the Western-backed opposition.

Last weekend, Al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters in northern Syria executed a prominent moderate rebel commander—a slaying that has exacerbated divisions between Islamic militants and degraded morale inside the beleaguered Western-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is facing a defection crisis.

The slaying of Ammar al-Wawi by jihadists linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams, or ISIS, is the latest in a series of targeted abductions and assassinations of leading moderate rebels. FSA sources say they suspect that al-Wawi was executed on Saturday after being cornered three days earlier, along with three of his men, near Bab al-Hawa as he crossed back into Syria from Turkey.

A few days before his abduction, fighters with the newly-formed Islamic Front seized FSA weapons storehouses at Bab al-Hawa. The Front has no official ties with the al-Qaeda fighters—who see the Syrian civil war as part of their global jihad—but it shares much of their hardline ideology and several of the seven brigades that make up the Islamic Front have fought alongside jihadists in the past.

Al-Wawi, a former Syrian government intelligence officer who defected to the rebel cause in July 2011, was a regular interlocutor with the international media, often serving as the FSA’s spin-doctor in videos uploaded to YouTube and in interviews with Arabic-language television channels.

More than a year ago, al-Wawi was apparently upbeat about the prospects of the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad, saying that the regime was ‘like the walking dead.’ Now, his execution has added to a sense of foreboding among brigades still aligned with the FSA.

In July, jihadists killed popular FSA commander Kamal Hamami, a member of the rebel supreme military command, after luring him to a meeting in the Jebel al-Krud region, north of Latakia. His body was mutilated before being dumped. In early December, two other FSA commanders were assassinated in northern Syria.

The assassinations, along with the suspension earlier this month of non-lethal aid to the FSA by the U.S. and Britain following the seizing of the Bab al-Hawa weapons storehouses, has compounded a sense of doom in the ranks of the Western-backed rebel coalition.” Read more.

Flashback: ‘Real Islam’: Syrian Rebels Seek Implementation Of Worldwide Islamic ‘Ummah’ Where Freedom Is Restricted By Allah’s Law – “We are fighting to apply what Allah said to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. We are fighting so people don’t look to other people but only to Allah. We don’t believe in complete freedom: it is restricted by Allah’s laws. Allah created us and he knows what is best for us… We want the future that Islam commands. Not a country with borders but an umma [worldwide Islamic community of believers] of all the Muslim people. All Muslims should be united.” Read more.

Flashback: ‘Nowhere In Rebel-Controlled Syria Is There A Secular Fighting Force To Speak Of’ – ” In Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, rebels aligned with Al Qaeda control the power plant, run the bakeries and head a court that applies Islamic law. Elsewhere, they have seized government oil fields, put employees back to work and now profit from the crude they produce. Across Syria, rebel-held areas are dotted with Islamic courts staffed by lawyers and clerics, and by fighting brigades led by extremists. Even the Supreme Military Council, the umbrella rebel organization whose formation the West had hoped would sideline radical groups, is stocked with commanders who want to infuse Islamic law into a future Syrian government. Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of.” Read more.