The Unknown Devil

"People are getting a lot of money not because they are doing a lot but because their sponsor has an agenda - like the Muslim Brotherhood.
"Around Hama (spiritual heartland of the Brotherhood in Syria) they have the best weapons, but they are not using them.  They are buying them for the future, and this is frightening.  The Free Syrian Army now considers them a third party to fight later."

"This is our fear, that the groups will turn on each other.  We prefer support to go to those under no political party, but there is no support going to these."

 The divisions among the various opposition groups in Syria speak unfavourably about the potential for success.  With little co-ordination between the various groups and plenty of suspicion born of a society where tribalism and sectarian antipathy is always top of mind, lack of cohesion works against the success of the goal of uprooting Bashar al-Assad from the landscape of the country.

But bad enough as the suspicion on clan and tribal grounds alone represents, the sectarian divide is far more concerning.  "If you work with the Salafis, Salafi piety is required.  We are having to pretend.  If you look at him, you think he is a Salafi - he has grown a long beard and shaved the moustache.  He has a headband (of Koranic script.)  In the videos (of attacks), there is a religious theme and songs and logos."

Simply put, if the various fighters want to be operationally funded and provided with arms, they must present in a certain manner.  The funding all comes from religious groups, from the Muslim Brotherhood, from Saudi Arabia, from Qatar and elsewhere.  "There are very few cases where financial support is not from a religious group." 

So name changes are required to appear to qualify; more Islamist sounding names.  And funding follows.

FSA fighters and coordinators interviewed by The Times, at Turkish refugee camps confirm that the funding they received came complete with ideological qualifiers.  The Muslim Brotherhood, they said, has recruited followers in the camps. 

There is more than enough competition going the rounds.  And more than a little disillusionment on the part of civilians wanting to join the Free Syrian Army, only to discover that some of the groups purporting to represent the FSA are not what they appear to be.  "Only a few groups are really good.  The others are acting like thugs."  And those might perhaps be represented by the reports that affirm FSA members are as capable of atrocities as the regime.

Summary executions with mock trials.  Torture and murder.  Expediting life into death.  Revenge and the sweetness of eradicating those whose alliances do not reflect their own.  This is where the biblical injunction of an "eye for an eye", "tooth for a tooth", is relished and polished and practised to perfection and beyond.  "They claim to be FSA, but (criminals) are kidnapping people, including many businessmen.  This resulted in conflict between the FSA and the people."

The rumours abound; financiers linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and other more hard-line Gulf Arab Salafist groups have been busy supplying cash advances to Syrian revolutionaries.  With the knowledge and acquiescence of Turkey.  "Now it is still controllable, but if it goes longer, the only way will be to take the flags of the extremists."

"This country is losing its educated people.  It is not only Islamists, it is different ethnic groups also."  A fatwa banning foreign jihadist fighters from Syria was issued by a senior Syrian Salafist cleric.  That will be of huge influence to the al-Qaeda-affiliated groups and individuals infiltrating into Syria to catch some of the action.

And, as though there is not enough diversity of ideology and religious adherence, the announcement of the creation of the first Christian brigade of the FSA was made public.  

"It is not just the way we are seeing groups change outward principles and appearance.  The effect on (religious) minorities in Syria worries me most.  I am worried that the corrosive effect of Saudi funding is going to make the challenge of the rebels post-Assad almost insurmountable unless they get a grip on it", explained a fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

Thinking anarchy, chaos, uncontrolled unleashing of ancient grievances given free rein.  Thinking retrospectively of sticking with the known devil rather than inviting the presence of a total monster of a devil beyond the wildest nightmares of revolutionaries envisioning a new dawn.