Refugees and Jihadists

For the Syrian civilians driven from their homes by the fighting between the rebel forces and the Alawite regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, life is bitter.  It is bitterly cold, and utterly devoid of comfort and hope.  "I have nothing left except the mercy of God", said a 60-year-old widow, ensconced with her family of fifteen souls huddling in tents, sleeping on thin mattresses on cold plastic, two people sharing a blanket, and freezing rain seeping into the ground beneath them.

Children in these tent camps represent the bulk of patients that come to the camp clinic to gain the services of volunteer physicians who have returned to their homelands from their new homes abroad.  Intestinal worms, scabies, head lice, and chest colds bring the children to the clinic.  A shortage of medicines, from antibiotics and drugs to fight off parasites, medication for high blood pressure, and insulin all complicate efficacy of treatment.

The rebel forces have attracted Islamic extremists whose fierce fighting techniques honed over years of bloody battles in Afghanistan and Iraq, Somalia and Libya are helping to take down the regime.  With the skilled assistance of groups like al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra, recently declared a terrorist group by the U.S., the rebels are making headway, capturing military bases and their weaponry.
The presence of jihadi groups has concerned Europe and the U.S. who are supporting the Syrian opposition but feel uneasy and with good reason, at the accompanying terrorist groups.  The al-Nusra fighters that the U.S. has declared al-Qaeda affiliates and terrorists are valued by the Free Syria Army for their fighting prowess and their obvious qualities in assisting the rebels proceed with their aims to overpower the Syrian military.

They are defying the U.S. by pledging their allegiance to al-Nusra.  A total of 29 opposition groups signed a petition calling on mass demonstrations in support of Jabhat al-Nusra.  Many FSA leaders recognize its strength and rely on their fighting resilience, expertise under fire and resistance to fear, for they are jihadi prepared for martyrdom, and the Syrian rebels wish to martyr Present Assad.

And with luck, although the rebels haven't endeared themselves to Syria's Kurdish population, the Kurds may become sufficiently irritated by the regime to join the rebels.  Four mortar rounds hit the Kurdish neighbourhood of Sheik Maksoud, killing children and women.  There is also always the prospect that Turkish Kurds may see their opportunity in the general melee to foment their own rebellion.

In the meantime, the jihadi groups are shoring up the rebel ranks and the rebels are exceedingly grateful for their presence.  Unmindful and unheeding of the very real possibility of their come-from-behind prospect to use their strength in the future along with the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria to impose an Islamist government, bringing in Sharia law and presenting a broader common front with Egypt and Turkey.

And meanwhile, in addition to the internally displaced of whom it is estimated by Syria's Red Crescent that between 2.5 million and three million of the entire 23-million population have been driven from their homes another half-million have found shelter in Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Iraq, misery reigns supreme.