'Experts' differ on role of Islamists in Syria ...

(AFP)- "... "They are certainly present but they are not directing it. This popular uprising does not depend on the old political parties," said Rime Allaf, a researcher on Syria at London-based think-tank Chatham House... "The Muslim Brotherhood has lost much of its influence since (the 1982 massacre in) Hama, and especially after they allied themselves with former vice president Abdel Halim Khaddam," Allaf said... In February 2006, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood leader Ali Sadreddine Bayanouni formed an opposition front with Khaddam.

"The Muslim Brotherhood is indeed still a political force and its popular base is concentrated in major Sunni urban areas" said Faysal Itani of London-based risk assessment group Exclusive Analysis. "However, it is neither well organised nor does it have any formal structures," he said.... Its ability to conduct a protracted insurgency as seen in the late 1970s and early 1980s is low, if not non-existent." He said that could change if the group were provided weapons and training by Sunnis in neighbouring Iraq...  

But the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 gave rise to a more radical offshoot of "jihadi" Salafists, who believe in "holy war" and made their mark through three operations, including a September 2006 attack against the US embassy in Damascus. Some analysts disagree about the role of the Brotherhood in the Syrian protest movement. "In a society repressed by the security services there have to be determined elements -- that is to say politicised -- to stir it all, like the Muslim Brotherhood, communists and others," said Bassma Kodmani, a Syrian-born researcher at the Arab Reform Initiative, which is based in Paris and Beirut."These are the backbone" of the protests," she added."