Former CIA analyst and current Lignet.com Chief Analyst, Fred Fleitz argued that reports that Steven Sotloff was sold to ISIS by Syrian rebels “[reflect] the reality that the Syrian rebels have been thoroughly infiltrated by Islamists” on Wednesday’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto” on the Fox News Channel.
Fleitz said that while he hoped the reports were untrue, there are problems with the Syrian rebels, reporting “some of them recently had collaborated with ISIS to attack against the Syrian government. They’re really a mixed lot and it’s very dangerous for us to get too close to them until we know who we’re dealing with.”
He further stated “he [Obama] is trying to sugar-coat his conclusion that we cannot defeat ISIS without helping Assad. In my opinion, the president wrote off the Syrian rebels, and conceded the civil war to Assad years ago. Now I think trying to prop up the Syrian rebels is a worthy endeavor, but this will take a long time, but the president’s decision in Syria against ISIS has nothing to do with the rebels. He is simply trying to cover himself for an unfortunate consequence…I also think the president is trying to side-step the reality that there will have to be special forces, American and British, probably, to go into Syria. The Syrian rebels are not going to actually do that job.”
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