“We support a strike targeting the regime’s stocks of chemical weapons, as this is what has been announced by US officials,” Maj. Mohammad Yahyya Ali, commander of the northern and western fronts of the Free Syrian Army’s (FSA) Ihfad al-Rasul Brigades, one of the largest militias, told Al-Monitor over Skype, “but they also need to hit the vital military articulations and establish a no-fly zone.”
Most interventionists agree upon rejecting a full-scale deployment by land, whereas they complain like everyone else about the lack of arms. “We don’t need men, but supplies of weapons,” confirmed Ali.
On the contrary, the armed groups opposed to intervention are wary of Western interests, regardless of whether troops will be deployed on Syrian soil or not. “On principle, we are against foreign intervention because the locals should decide how to get rid of this criminal (President Bashar al-Assad),” the political wing of the Ahrar al-Sham Islamist movement told Al-Monitor in a written interview. “In case of a strike, it will be launched to achieve the interests of their countries, aloof from the interest of the Syrian people. If they were concerned about the situation of Syrians due to the crimes of the regime, they wouldn’t have delayed a response until now.” Ahrar al-Sham’s political wing announced, “All foreign troops entering Syria by land, whether Iranian or American, will be treated as occupying forces.”
Even some interventionist factions show concern about the interests served by the military operation, emphasizing the risk of seeing Israel strengthened by the consequences. “Foreign intervention is welcome as long as it targets those forces who are keeping under siege our cities and villages: the Republican Guards, the 4th Division (an elite brigade led by Bashar’s brother Maher al-Assad) and the security branches,” Lt. Col. Abu ‘Othman, commander of the Al-Fajr Brigade (FSA) in Eastern Ghouta, affirmed in a Skype interview with Al-Monitor. “The West should not strike the modern National Air Force Defense, as this is needed to defend our country from Israel.”
Others argue that the priority should be rescuing Syrian civilians, rather than believing in the defensive nature of a military apparatus which has been rarely used against the Jewish state. “The Air Force has never been used against Israel, but only on the Syrian people, therefore it needs to be targeted,” Ihfad al-Rasul’s Ali objected, adding, “The priority is to stop spilling Syrian blood.”
via Syria’s Rebels Not Unified On US Strike
Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.
So…. as far as I see it, the so called “moderate” rebels are everything except a unity (keep in mind that the Angry Beards from Al-Nusra and others haven’t been asked in the article about the issue) and every one expects western intervention as if Santa Claus was coming to town, and expecting a different present in the shape of a bomb that satisfies what they asked for in their wish letters…. wtf.
What can we expect of this attack.
Really… What can we expect that benefits those syrians that seem to concern Mr. Obama, Mr. Cameron and Msr. Hollande sooooo deeply?
Will it work to end this war faster?
Will it be useful to fix the issue of who launched that chemical attack making sure who is to blame …beyond the fact that there were chemical weapons and lethal gasses involved in it?
Will it work to restitute the dignity of so many victims on both sides?
Will do smthg good after approx. 110000 ppl have dead?
Will fix the situation in order to allow those millions of displaced and refugees to get back home, avoiding a Syrian naqba and all the personal tragedies that are already becoming alarming?
Will it be, in the long term, a way to make Syrians, and specially that million of displaced children, see a future of peace, prosperity and national dignity?
Will it keep Syria as a possible nation?
Because if these “moderate” guys don’t agree in the colour of shit, what kind of future can they offer to Syria… other than chaos, fight and bloodshed for years as happens today in Iraq?
It’s too obvious that they also disagree that all Syrian blood is the same colour and quality, and for each one of them, just their own supporters are to be granted a safe future.
To be honest… that last paragraph seems the most certain sentence of this article.
And that just offers us the darkest of all horizons for Syria and its people…. if west attacks Syria.
Assad could be a dictator, and many people were opressed by him and can be oppressed in the future if he stays in power as he is now,… but he and his father led a nation. Not a chaos where everyone asks west or someone from outside to intervene, send cash and weapons and secure their quote of power.
So… DON’T BE A FOOL TRYING TO MAKE US SWALLOW YOUR FOOLISH SOLUTIONS AND LOOK FOR A NEW STRATEGY THAT INVOLVES FORCING EVERYONE TO SIT DOWN, IMPOSING A NEGOTIATION AND A PLAN TO OFFER SYRIANS A FUTURE. Gen. EISENHOWER AND Gen. MARSHALL SHOWED U HOW TO DO IT WITH EUROPE IN 1945.
STUDY HISTORY. AGAIN.
REACH AGREEMENTS WITH RUSSIA, THE GULF NATIONS, IRAN, EUROPE OR WHOEVER AND MAKE THEM ALL WORK TOWARDS A SOLUTION THAT WON’T EVER FIX THE SCARS THAT THIS WAR HAS LEFT BUT AT LEAST WILL CERTAINLY CUT THE BLEEDING FAR MORE THAN DROPPING CRUISE MISSILES OVER SYRIANS.
Because sirs…, and specially Mr Obama:
that’s mostly the kind of job you should have done since this shit started.
You didn’t ask for a Nobel Price of Peace. We know it.
But world gave it to you because you were expected to be the man who would achieve peace and make a change in the way USA had done things till then.
Consider that as a mandate from us: the world, Mr. President.
Because YES, YOU CAN.
Al-Must'arib (the vocational Mossarab) 