"I'm not going to lie to you. We'd prefer you fight Al Nusra now & then fight Assad's army!"

One hell of an idiotic 'rebel' commander with his 'warrior-poet' view of the Syrian conflict, discovers the 'agendas' his benefactors/ sponsors/ bankrollers! 

"... The commander - a moderate Sunni and an influential rebel leader from Damascus who said he has met intelligence operatives from Western and Arab states - said the US officials were especially keen to obtain information about the identities of Al Nusra insurgents and the locations of their bases.

Then, by the rebel commander's account, the discussion took an unexpected turn.

The Americans began discussing the possibility of drone strikes on Al Nusra camps inside Syria and tried to enlist the rebels to fight their fellow insurgents.

"The US intelligence officer said, 'We can train 30 of your fighters a month, and we want you to fight Al Nusra'," the rebel commander recalled.

Opposition forces should be uniting against Mr Al Assad's more powerful and better-equipped army, not waging war among themselves, the rebel commander replied. The response from a senior US intelligence officer was blunt.

"I'm not going to lie to you. We'd prefer you fight Al Nusra now, and then fight Assad's army. You should kill these Nusra people. We'll do it if you don't," the rebel leader quoted the officer as saying.

What the commander says transpired in Jordan illustrates a dilemma that has preoccupied, even paralysed, Syria's opposition and their international supporters - how to deal with the expanding role of Islamic extremists in the anti-Assad insurgency.

Other meetings with Western and Arab intelligence services have shown a similar obsession with Al Nusra, the commander said......, .....

"All anyone wants is hard information about Al Nusra, it seems to be all they are really interested in. It's the most valuable commodity you can have when dealing with these intelligence agencies," he said.

The rebel commander who described meeting US intelligence officers in Jordan said he had refused to give them any information about Al Nusra.

Although not a supporter of Al Qaeda's ideology, he said the Americans were being too clumsy and would only undermine the revolt against Mr Al Assad.

"There are three strands of Al Nusra - the minority are serious Al Qaeda people, some are just in for the glamour of fighting jihad and the majority are ordinary Syrians who just want to save their country," he said.

Since that meeting the rebel commander has not bothered to talk to Western or Arab intelligence agencies, despite what he described as frequent invitations for more talks. Rather than wait for foreign governments to supply weapons, his group has imported their own advanced explosives and begun manufacturing their own munitions.

"They [foreign governments] are not fighting for the same things as us," he said. "Syrians are fighting for our freedom, while they just want us to bleed to death fighting each other."..."