Religion Is The Passion

"The insurgency is now dominated by groups which have at least an Islamist viewpoint on the conflict. The idea that it is mostly secular groups leading the opposition is just not borne out.
"Because of the Islamist makeup of such a large proportion of the opposition, the fear is that if the West doesn't play its cards right, it will end up pushing these people away from the people we are backing.
"If the West looks as though it is not interested in removing Assad, moderate Islamists are also likely to be pushed further towards extremists."
Charles Lister, IHS Jane's Syria opposition analysis report author

The estimation is that those forces in the opposition fighting the Syrian Baathist regime's military number around 100,000 fighters. Two years of conflict, however, have altered the makeup of the personnel taking part in the opposition battles, while increasing total numbers. The increase in numbers is what initially gave heart to the original Free Syria Army rebels.

That they were Islamists was secondary in concern. That has certainly changed.

The study by IHS Jane's defence consultancy, estimates that among that 100,000 rounded figure of stalwart opposition fighters, ten thousand represent hard-core jihadists. That hard core of foreign fighters, representing factions linked to al-Qaeda. Another 30,000 to 35,000 are simply less fanatical Islamists sharing the basic ideology of the jihadists, their main concern not the wider struggle, but that contained within Syria.

Another 30,000 are considered moderate by definition. Representing groups with an Islamic tenor. And what is left is a relatively and insecurely minor group, a rebel minority linked to secular or nationalist groups. And all these fighting forces have no cohesion, no group ideal, no coordinating measures contained within their presence in the county. They are fragmented into one thousand separate, segregated bands of militias. Free-range guerrillas.

Each with their own tactics. Values. Imperatives. Levels of viciousness. Or not.

And this, precisely, is what concerns the West. How to support such a group? With its greater proportion of threatening Islamists who will have no intention of confining their purpose and their weapons within Syria. Syria, for them, will represent a station on the way to fulfillment of the Islamist-jihadist movement of domination. Everyone happy under a universal Sharia.

'Universal' used here in the most universal as in 'international' eventually, of senses.

The two factions linked to al-Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra, and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant are dominant among the most extreme of the fanatics. And their influence is growing.  The local population in northern Syria has been inundated by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, elevating themselves in popularity over the more moderate rebel Free Syrian Army.

Fighting has emerged between ISL and two of the larger moderate factions of the rebels. Al-Qaeda elements have taken to assassinating FSA commanders in recent weeks. A jihadist campaign for control of the territory of northern Latakia.

Anti-Assad fighters are seen here near Aleppo, in norther Syria

The ISS and Jabhat-al Nusra fighters have more income generation allowing them with their economic clout to "win hearts and minds", providing food and other essentials for the local people. Little wonder that their influence has significantly risen.

Little wonder that there are fears in the West over supplying weapons that will inevitably come into such hands. Military intervention to aid the rebels will concomitantly aid the Islamists with their jihadist program. It's a hard place to be in, receiving intelligence of this nature and trying to judge outcomes and possible interventions.

Other than persuading the Syrian government that its most vital task is to face its own passion-filled ferocity of the Shiite variety against the equal passion to prevail of the Sunni jihadis. And let them go to it, unrestrained and as bloodthirsty as it takes to exhaust their spiritual resources.

As a cheering crowd of fighters look on, an executioner - believed to belong to the Al Qaeda-linked faction ISIS - lines up his sword in a practice run before delivering the final blow