BEHEADED JOURNALISTS WARNED ABOUT OBAMA'S 'MODERATE' ALLIES

President's 'strategy' includes support for army working with al-Qaida
09/11/2014
F. MICHAEL MALOOF



Free Syrian Army
WASHINGTON – As part of his “strategy” to eliminate ISIS, also known as ISIL, President Obama wants to “equip Syrian opposition fighters,” and while not mentioning the Free Syrian Army, or FSA, by name, that group, the group in which American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff were embedded before they were captured by ISIS and beheaded, likely would be a recipient.

But sources tell WND that articles by Foley and Sotloff had become increasingly critical of the so-called “moderate” FSA rebels, who were seeking the overthrow of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

It was the same FSA that ultimately turned Foley and Sotloff over to ISIS. A family spokesman told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Monday the FSA sold Sotloff to ISIS for between $25,000 and $50,000.

The Obama administration already has spent millions of dollars in training and arms to the FSA, claiming it has gone to great pains to sift out jihadists from rebels who oppose Assad.

“We have a Free Syrian Army and a moderate opposition that we have steadily been working with that we have vetted,” Obama recently told Chuck Todd, host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” in an interview aired Sunday.

On Wednesday night, while explaining his “strategy” to Americans, Obama said, “We will increase our support to forces fighting these terrorists on the ground.”

And he added, “In Syria, we have ramped up our military assistance to the Syrian opposition. Tonight, I again call on Congress to give us additional authorities and resources to train and equip these fighters. In the fight against ISIL, we cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorizes its people; a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost. Instead, we must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight against extremists like ISIL.”

“They [Syrian opposition forces] have been on the defensive, not just from ISIS, but also from the Assad regime,” Obama told Todd. “And what you know, if you recall, at the West Point speech that I gave, I said, we need to put more resources into the moderate opposition.”

Increasingly, however, fighters for the FSA are working more closely with al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, and now ISIS, also known as the Islamic State. ISIS is led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who seeks to establish a caliphate under strict Islamic law. He already has taken territory from northeast Syria into west and central Iraq.

Weapons provided to the FSA from the U.S. and other countries have made their way into ISIS hands.

“We are collaborating with the Islamic State and the Nusra Front by attacking the Syrian Army’s gatherings in Qalamoun,” said Bassel Idriss to Lebanon’s Daily Star.

Idriss is a commander of a Free Syrian Army brigade.

In turn, many al-Nusra fighters are joining ISIS’ ranks.

FSA commanders admit collaboration

In Lebanon, where concern is mounting over possible ISIS attacks in that country, FSA commanders admit to cooperating with jihadist groups in military operations along the Syrian-Lebanese border.

FSA fighters appear to be joining ISIS and al-Nusra out of isolation and frustration on the battlefield, further radicalizing the fighters. The notion of combining their forces is meeting with increasing favor to achieve a greater goal.

“We have reached a point where we have to collaborate with anyone against unfairness and injustice,” said FSA commander Abu Khaled.

Unfavorable coverage

Before being sold to ISIS, Foley and Sotloff were based in Turkey, near the Syrian border, which has been used as a base for jihadist groups to train and obtain military equipment to fight in Syria against Assad.

Embedded with the FSA, journalists had published articles that did not always favor the Syrian opposition group.
Sotloff, for example, wrote articles for Time magazine and other media outlets inside Turkey that reported strong support for Assad among the Turkish Alawite communities.

His reporting reflected how jihadist fighters were being financed mainly by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with help from Turkey.
Separately, WND has reported on the assistance Turkey continues to give ISIS despite denials from the government
In May 2013 – three months before what Sotloff family members claim was a sale by FSA operatives to ISIS – Sotloff reported Syrian rebels were found with chemical weapons, particularly Sarin poison gas.

While the jihadists with Sarin were arrested, Turkish police quickly released them, showing support for al-Nusra.

Sotloff couldn’t understand why the establishment media weren’t picking up on the development, since the conventional thinking, including at the policy level of the U.S. government, was that rebels didn’t have such a capability and only the Syrian government had Sarin.

On May 30, 2013, Sotloff tweeted: “#JebhalaNusra stocking up on #Sarin in #Turkey. Not sure why the mainstream media hasn’t picked up on this yet: todayszaman.com/news-316966-re…”

One of Sotloff’s last articles may have been the most critical of FSA. It was titled “In Aleppo Bread Lines and Disenchantment with the FSA.”

In the article, he quoted one Aleppo resident as saying about the FSA: “They have already destroyed our country.”

Like Sotloff, freelance journalist Foley was critical of the FSA. He had cited a New York Times article that referred to al-Qaida presence within the FSA. At the time, he saw a flag he didn’t recognize. It turned out to be a flag of ISIS, taken with a group of FSA fighters.

In his tweet, Foley referred to the flag and included a picture: “… didn’t know black flag meant #alqaeda necessarily, can also be misc. jihadis? Al Qaeda Role Syria nyt.ms/SSYtHz,” followed by this picture:



Often, Foley wrote for the Global Post, which published one of his critical FSA articles on Oct. 16, 2012, titled, “Syria: Rebels losing support among civilians in Aleppo.”

“Aleppo, a city of about 3 million people, was once the financial heart of Syria. As it continues to deteriorate, many civilians here are losing patience with the increasingly violent and unrecognizable opposition – one that is hampered by infighting and a lack of structure, and deeply infiltrated by both foreign fighters and terrorist groups,” Foley wrote.

“The rebels in Aleppo are predominantly from the countryside, further alienating them from the urban crowd that once lived here peacefully, in relative economic comfort and with little interference from the authoritarian government of President Bashar al-Assad.”

‘ISIS was actively hunting down reporters’

In a Facebook account, Julian Reichelt who was in a safehouse in Syria at the time of Sotloff’s capture writing for the German paper Bild, said there were ISIS spotters working in the Turkish town of Kilis.

He said that most reporters had begun to give up covering Syria “because ISIS was actively hunting down reporters.”
He said that in August 2013, the month that Sotloff was taken by ISIS, the “moderate opposition, known as the Free Syrian Army, was getting hammered by regime airstrikes and shelling and somewhat jealously eyeing the emerging Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which was well-equipped with guns, ammo and money from wealthy Gulf donors.”

“Stay safe,” Reichelt wrote in his Facebook account, “(the expression) ‘don’t wanna see you in some YouTube video’ had become a common, now darkly prophetic, line between parting journalists in the hotels on the Turkish side of the border.

“We all knew that on the other side (in Syria), in the town of Azaz, ISIS had established a dangerous presence, roaming the streets in pickup trucks watching all the strategic intersections one had to pass to drive on to besieged Aleppo.”

As it turns out, Reichelt said his handler advised him that it was unsafe in Syria, since another journalist had just been kidnapped.

“What’s his name?” Reichelt asked.

After some 30 minutes of checking, Reichelt’s handler came back with the answer – “Zotlof.”

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