Key Free Syria Army rebel 'killed by Islamist group'
BBC News online -- 12 July 2013
The BBC's Paul Wood on "Syria's civil war within a
civil war" - including footage believed to be of Kamal Hamami though not
fully authenticated
A senior rebel commander in Syria is reported to have been killed by rebels from a rival group linked to al-Qaeda.
An FSA spokesman said he was told by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant that they had killed Mr Hamami.
The killing is part of an escalating struggle within the armed uprising between moderates and Islamists.
The BBC's Paul Wood says a civil war within a civil war is building within the opposition as the two sides engage in a battle that is partly over the spoils and partly ideological.
Checkpoint battle
Kamal Hamami, also known as Abu Basir al-Ladkani, worked in a butcher's shop before the conflict began, but went on to form one of the FSA's key brigades in his native port city of Latakia.
A year ago the jihadis were still operating almost underground in Syria. Now they are powerful and important players, in some places running whole towns, where they impose Sharia law.
"This is a disaster for us, a disaster for the revolution," a female opposition activist told me. She was complaining about Islamist gunmen telling her not to smoke, to cover her head, and to leave meetings where she was the only woman.
She admitted that the jihadis had grown in popularity because of corruption and infighting among the FSA. Many rebel groups were preying on the people they are supposed to be fighting for, she conceded.
The moral clarity of the early days of the uprising has been lost. Then, people wanted to defend themselves against overwhelming and brutal force - and ultimately to replace a corrupt, one-party dictatorship. Now people tell me the revolution itself has become corrupt and in rebel-held areas they fear a different kind of tyranny: crime, kidnapping, gangsterism.
He is believed to have met
members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Latakia to inform
them of a planned offensive in the area, before being ambushed and shot
dead.
The rebels manning the checkpoint had refused to let him pass, saying he would need to get permission from their leader, and he had told them they had to take their checkpoint down.
As the argument raged, according to this account, one of the fighters - said to be a foreign jihadi from Iraq - raised his weapon and shot Kamal Hamami dead.
"The Islamic State phoned me saying that they killed Abu Basir and that they will kill all of the Supreme Military Council," FSA spokesman Qassem Saadeddine told Reuters news agency.
The FSA was established in 2011 by army deserters based in Turkey and is said to have some 40,000 members.
Although the FSA have had some successes in the fight against President Assad's forces, they say they will be unable to win the war unless they acquire more sophisticated weaponry.
In recent months, Western and Arab nations have agreed to step up support for moderate Syrian rebels in their battle against President Bashar al-Assad's forces.
But many in the West are nervous about heavy weaponry falling into the hands of radical groups.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq announced in April that it was merging with the Syrian Islamist group, the Nusra Front, to form the single Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (the Levant).
The Nusra Front - which had gained a reputation for discipline and honesty - rejected the merger though not its allegiance to al-Qaeda.
The leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has urged its fighters to strive for an Islamic state in Syria.
The spread of Sharia in rebel-held areas has alarmed the moderate members of the opposition, who, though Muslim, do not want a religious state.
Labels: Conflict, Islamists, Revolution, Syria
posted by Pieface @ Friday, July 12, 2013
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