Gee, you mean other than the Kurds the administration can’t actually locate the Syrian “moderates”? Ya don’t say…
(CNSNews.com) – An Islamist rebel group that has been fighting both the Assad regime and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) said Thursday that its base in western Syria had been targeted in an overnight U.S. airstrike.
!["NO ISLAM WITHOUT JIHAD" - members of the Free Syrian Army. Abu Khuder and his men fight for al-Qaida. They call themselves the ghuraba'a, or "strangers", after a famous jihadi poem celebrating Osama bin Laden's time with his followers in the Afghan mountains, and they are one of a number of jihadi organisations establishing a foothold in the east of the country now that the conflict in Syria has stretched well into its second bloody year. They try to hide their presence. "Some people are worried about carrying the [black] flags," said Abu Khuder. "They fear America will come and fight us. So we fight in secret. Why give Bashar and the west a pretext?" But their existence is common knowledge in Mohassen. Even passers-by joke with the men about car bombs and IEDs.](https://theconservativetreehouse.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/no-islam-without-jihad.jpg)
They try to hide their presence. “Some people are worried about carrying the [black] flags,” said Abu Khuder. “They fear America will come and fight us. So we fight in secret. Why give Bashar and the west a pretext?” But their existence is common knowledge in Mohassen. Even passers-by joke with the men about car bombs and IEDs.
If Ahrar al-Sham’s base was bombed as claimed – either in a targeting error or perhaps because the U.S. had intelligence that its base was being used by al-Nusra/al-Qaeda/Khorasan operatives for plotting – the incident underlines again the difficulties facing the U.S. in what President Obama on Wednesday called a “complicated” and “messy” conflict.
But U.S. Central Command only reported five U.S. airstrikes in the area against al-Nusra/al-Qaeda elements dubbed the “Khorasan group,” which the Pentagon says is plotting terror attacks against the West.
Al-Nusra confirmed on Twitter that it had been targeted by “the alliance of Crusaders and Arabs.” (The Pentagon said the strikes against the Khorasan group had been carried out by the U.S. alone, not in conjunction with coalition partners, as has been the case with many of the anti-ISIS missions.)
It was only the second time since coalition airstrikes against ISIS in Syria began on September 22 that the Khorasan group has been specifically targeted, the first being on the opening night of the air campaign.
Central Command said the Khorasan group’s “focus is not on overthrowing the Assad regime or helping the Syrian people. These al-Qaeda operatives are taking advantage of the Syrian conflict to advance attacks against Western interests.” (read more)
