Syrians Demonstrate In Support Of Jihadist Group Designated As Terrorists

It's tragic, what's happening in Syria.  A secular albeit dictator-run country with a leader hell-bent on staying in power even if it means massacring his own people is headed down an equally hellish path. The people of Syria, like their Arab Spring brethren, started out fighting for freedom, but what they could potentially end up with (and most likely will), like their Arab Spring brethren, is far worse.

What president Bashar Al Assad has been claiming all along- about battling foreign terrorists and Islamists- has finally come true. I don't believe it was so in the beginning, but in these long 18 months of battle Islamists have joined the fray, and it appears they're now the ones poised to prevail, along with their hardcore Islamic ways.

Already, some rebels and other opponents of Mr Assad have sought to implement their particularly harsh version of Sharia on a small scale, particularly using corporal punishment against suspected criminals and government supporters.

Rebel interrogators in this town, about 20 kilometres from the Turkish border, said they had beaten the legs of detainees with sticks.

Insurgents in nearby Mare' threatened to amputate the hands of alleged thieves and paraded them through town in an effort to publicly shame them, residents said.

In Aleppo, where fierce fighting between insurgents and government forces has raged for weeks, one rebel leader said he had ordered lashings using rubber hoses and knotted ropes.

And according to The National, many of the people, particularly the conservative rural folk, seem to want the change.

Abu Yaqoub, a 26-year-old Muslim cleric in rebel-held Tell Rif'at, believes Sharia would provide the best form of government for Syria in a post-Assad era.

"God willing," Mr Yaqoub replied, when asked if Islamic law should be imposed nationwide.  

Read more about the situation regarding the Islamists in The National.

And to further demonstrate just how influential the Islamists have become, Syrians took to the streets in protest of the Obama administration designating one of the rebel jihadist groups- Jabhat al-Nusra- a terrorist organization. Since they are linked to al-Qaeda, yes, that would make them terrorists, but obviously thousands of Syrians don't seem to care.

The protesters demonstrated under the slogan: "There is no terrorism in Syria except that of Assad."

Protesters in the Eastern Ghuta region, just outside Damascus and which has come under regular air raids by the regime army, held up a sign reading: "Thank you to all the 'terrorists' in Syria who are fighting Assad."

"We are all Al-Nusra Front," it said, in reference to the jihadist group blacklisted by Washington on Tuesday.

Lines of children and men linked arms and carried the three-starred flag of the revolution as they called for downfall of the regime in the street as shopkeepers looked on.

Since  no-one else was helping them while they were being slaughtered, they feel indebted to the Islamists. What they fail to realize is that they will want something in return. In essence what the Syrians are trading is one form of oppression for another.

What an epic fail on the part of the U.N.