A year ago, Ibrahim Qobani was an
idealistic 19-year-old revolutionary who sang about freedom.
Always dressed in a scarf and
fingerless gloves woven with the colors of the Syrian rebel flag, Qobani worked
with a team of pro-democracy activists in Syria's northern Idlib province. He
would sing from the rooftops during boisterous anti-government protests,
complete with humorous animations that begged the international community to
help stop Syrian government atrocities.
Gone is the scarf with colors of the
rebel flag. Instead of leading the chants, the young man stands in the crowd
smiling as one man sings, "We destroyed America with a civilian plane,
turned the World Trade Center into a pile of dirt. If you call me a terrorist,
I say it's an honor."
In another video, Qobani stands
cheering with a crowd of bearded men as a little boy sings, "Our commander
is Bin Laden. He showed the Americans the strength of our faith." A man
gives the boy a knife, which he proceeds to slice through the air as he sings,
"Our police is Nusra. Just wait Alawites. We will come to slaughter
you."
It was a chilling warning to the
minority religious sect of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has stacked
the top ranks of his security forces with fellow Alawites.
Several of his friends, however, confirmed
that he is now a member of Jabhat al-Nusra, or the Nusra Front, the most famous
of the hard-line Islamist rebel groups now fighting against the Syrian regime.
Qobani's ideological evolution is
symbolic of a broader shift that many Syrians say they're seeing nearly two
years after the anti-government uprising began.
"There is an increasing
militarization and now increased radicalization of the revolution," said
Rafif Jouejati. She is the English spokeswoman for the Local Coordination
Committees in Syria, one of the first groups to organize peaceful
anti-government protests in the spring of 2011.
"Jabhat al-Nusra continues to
make gains," Jouejati said. "They continue to increase in popularity,
particularly as they begin to implement social services."
In the last year, the Nusra Front
has grown from a shadowy group claiming responsibility for deadly car bombs to
what Syrians describe as a highly disciplined fighting force that continues to
attract recruits from the more secular Free Syrian Army rebels.
Nusra Front fighters are said to be
leading the ongoing siege of the Khweiris military airbase in Aleppo province.
They are also credited with helping lead the capture of the Taftanaz helicopter
airbase in Idlib province last month.
Opinion: Terrorist group fills power
vacuum among Syria rebels
The high-profile Islamist victories
on the battlefield have been accompanied by another trend. Gradually, black
Islamist banners have replaced the distinctive green, black, white and red
flags of the Syrian rebels at weekly anti-government protests.
"After two years of killings
and butchering and the entire world standing by and watching us, now we depend
on God only. So we started raising the banner of Shahada, the black banner of
war," explained a Syrian activist who has spent much of the last two years
organizing anti-government protests in Idlib province.
The Shahada refers to the Islamic
creed "There is no god but God, Mohammed is the messenger of God." It
is one of the most important pillars of Islam. It is also invoked for martyrdom
on the battlefield.
After two years of killings and
butchering and the entire world standing by and watching us, now we depend on
God only.
Syrian activist
The rapid rise of hard-line Sunni
Muslim groups like the Nusra Front -- some of which have seen their ranks
swelled by foreign jihadi fighters -- is a trend that makes Jouejati and other
more secular revolutionaries deeply uncomfortable.
It is also making Washington uneasy.
In December, the U.S. government blacklisted the Nusra Front, labeling
it a terrorist organization.
"We blacklisted the Nusra Front
because of its intimate links with al Qaeda in Iraq ... which is responsible
for the killing of thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of Americans," said
Robert Ford, the U.S. ambassador to Syria, "We know what al Qaeda in Iraq
did and is still doing, and we don't want it to start doing that in
Syria."
But some Syrian opposition leaders
blame Western inaction for the recent growth of the Islamist groups.
"The U.S. and the European
Union didn't help us, and that created an increase in Islamic radicalism
here," said Marwan Gayed in an interview in Aleppo last month. Gayed was a
judge who defected from the Syrian government and helped launch the United
Courts Council, an opposition-run court that is trying to institute law and
order in rebel-controlled parts of Aleppo.
Like many in the opposition, Gayed
has viewed Islamist groups like Nusra as uneasy partners in the campaign to
overthrow the al-Assad regime.
"They are our brothers in the
revolution. They bleed for it. But we differ on how to build the state,"
explained Gayed, who now serves as the chief prosecutor for the United Courts
Council. "We call for a civil, democratic nation. They call for an Islamic
state."
U.S. branding of al-Nusra may have
unintended consequences
Members of the Nusra Front declined
to meet face to face with journalists. Instead, Salem Sabbagh, the spokesman
for the Nusra Front in Aleppo, answered several questions submitted in print.
He wrote that the main object of the
group in Syria was "to establish an Islamic state that can be based on the
principles of the shura (consultations) where righteousness and justice will
prevail based on applying God's laws."
"We already started carrying
out God's law in some of the liberated areas," Sabbagh added. "And we
noted a great reception among the people when it comes to these religious
courts, especially when they discovered that these courts were not as some
portrayed and tried to distort their reality that such a court system will
enslave them and that their heads will be severed and that their only salvation
is when they choose a secular Western-oriented system that can rule among
them."
Competition between the United
Courts Council and courts backed by the Nusra Front exploded this month. On
Tuesday, the council accused Nusra Front fighters of raiding one of its
courthouses in Aleppo.
"Jabhat Al-Nusra stormed the
Second Circuit United Judicial Council and seized the building of the Council
and attacked scholars and judges who were there and they beat them and insulted
them and then they kidnapped them to Jabhat al-Nusra's headquarters," said
the council in a written statement also signed by a group calling itself the
Free Aleppo Lawyers.
Rebel court fills void amid Syrian
war
It is not the first time tensions
have flared between the Nusra Front and other revolutionaries.
One of Aleppo's most famous
anti-government activists, a man known as Abu Maryam, told CNN he was briefly
detained and flogged by Islamist fighters last week.
After his release, Abu Maryam posted
a photo on Facebook of his bruised back.
"They accused me of protesting
against the caliphate," Abu Maryam said in a brief interview.
Asked whether he thought the Nusra
Front was taking over Syria's uprising, Abu Maryam said, "Yes, of course,
that's true, but it's all because of the mistakes of the Free Syrian
Army."
Nearly two years into the uprising,
the rebel Free Syrian Army continues to be dogged by accusations of corruption.
In recent weeks, activists have
mounted an online campaign accusing Ahmed Afash, a prominent commander based in
Aleppo, of banditry and kidnapping. Afash has denied the charges.
But last week, a detachment of
Afash's fighters raided the offices of the Aleppo Media Center. They briefly
detained several Syrian journalists who had published reports that Afash's
brigade had killed an innocent civilian.
Meanwhile, Islamist groups like the
Nusra Front have been applauded for distributing food and fuel to hungry,
freezing Syrians.
The Nusra Front also launched a
cheap public service in rebel-controlled parts of Aleppo.
"Not only do they do the
fighting, but they also perform a lot of civil duties such as cleaning roads,
manning bakeries, installing and repairing city infrastructure like
electricity," said the activist from Idlib province, who asked not to be
named. "Some of the Nusra Front members are now playing even the role of
street cleaners because of garbage in the city that has increased the rat
population."
Even Syrians who criticize the Nusra
Front concede the Islamists have offered hope to some members of a society
traumatized by a brutal conflict that has claimed more than 70,000 lives and
left millions of people homeless.
As Islamists within the uprising
continue to attract support, leaders of the Free Syrian Army have been left
fuming, blaming a lack of Western engagement for the ideological shift in the
uprising.
"We see the Islamist factions
gaining more ground, recruiting some of our own people," said Louai
Miqdad, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army.
"The world is handing Syria
over to the unknown, to the radicals, to the Islamists."
source: CNN
