Monday, September 16, 2013

They're killing each other and "that's a good thing"...

... or are they?!
"... Maaloula is the rule and Bab is the exception, according to Swedish analyst and researcher Aron Lund, who has just completed a study of Syria’s nonstate actors. It is very rare that one group pulls off an operation all by itself. Instead individual commanders from across the ideological spectrum join forces to plan the attack, each contributing its specific expertise and weapons cache. “It’s unrealistic to expect that you can tell rebels to stay away from other rebels as long as civil war is going on.” Al-Nusra, he points out, has a particularly effective battlefield weapon that few of the more moderate groups can claim: suicide bombers. The conquest of Maaloula started with a suicide attack by an al-Nusra fighter on the government checkpoint. The fight went downhill from there. “The suicide attack is a powerful weapon,” says Lund. “Many battles start with an operation to take the military base. To do that you have to break the perimeter, and you can’t do that without a suicide bomber. So that is what Nusra brings to the table.”..."

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