STATE: The US 'open to engage group "dangerously close to al Qaeda"

"... As the moderate faction of the Syrian rebellion implodes under the strain of vicious infighting and diminished resources, the United States is increasingly looking to hardline Islamists in its efforts to gain leverage in Syria's civil war. ...On Monday, the State Department confirmed its openness to engaging with the Islamic Front following the group's seizure of a Free Syrian Army headquarters last week containing U.S.-supplied small arms and food. "We wouldn't rule out the possibility of meeting with the Islamic Front," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Monday. "We can engage with the Islamic Front, of course, because they're not designated terrorists ...  We're always open to meeting with a wide range of opposition groups. Obviously, it may make sense to do so at some point soon, and if we have something to announce, we will."...
Soon after its creation, the Islamic Front signed a charter that made it clear the group aimed to create a Sunni theocracy, not a Western-style democracy. The document rejected the prospect of any sort of representative government, arguing that in Islam, only "God is the sovereign." It explicitly rejects secularism as "contradictory to Islam," and argues that Syria's ethnic and religious minorities can be protected on the basis of Islamic law.
Some of the comments from the Islamic Front's top leaders support the contention that the group's ideology comes dangerously close to that of al Qaeda ..."