President Obama in his September 10 speech to the nation officially confirmed that the United States has been “sending arms to Iraqi Security Forces and the Syrian opposition.” While Obama did not state specifically what group(s) America is providing assistance for, Breitbart News has been meticulously documenting — since the beginning of the Syrian civil war — the administration’s cozy relationship with the Free Syrian Army (FSA).
In an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd this week, Obama identified the FSA as part of the “moderate” Muslim coalition hoping to overthrow the Assad regime. “We have a Free Syrian Army and a moderate opposition that we have steadily been working with that we have vetted,” he said. “They have been on the defensive, not just from ISIL, but also from the Assad regime. 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.”
However, Obama’s “vetted” Free Syrian Army is anything but a sure bet. Not only is it not a sure bet — the FSA does not view the Islamic State, which is our enemy, as its enemy. It’s primary goal, which is to overthrow Shia-backed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, remains completely separate from the current undertaking of the United States against the Islamic State.
Breitbart News has documented the shaky allegiances of the so-called “moderate” Free Syrian Army. Just this week, two top FSA commanders publicly announced that they had thrown their weight behind the Islamic State and Al Nusra Front.
Even the left-wing New York Times has reported that the FSA has often had no issue joining forces, sometimes temporarily and sometimes permanently, with the Islamic State. Last month, the NYT spoke with a member of an FSA brigade, who said that their missions were carried out “as a combined operation involving fighters from the Free Syrian Army, the Nusra Front and ISIS.”
In July, Breitbart News again reported on events in eastern Syria that revealed several more factions of the Free Syrian Army had pledged their services to the Islamic State. In a video proclamation, a top FSA commander said that his platoon “decided to swear allegiance” to the Islamic State and “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
In February, FSA confirmed it had lost some $500 million dollars worth of American weaponry to the Islamic State and other terrorist factions.
Too many factions within the Free Syrian Army have time and time again exposed themselves as Sunni Islamist entities primarily interested in overthrowing the Shia-backed Assad regime in Syria. Those factions will happily advance their strategic edification through CIA-backed training, or simply by linking up with fellow Sunni terrorists such as the Islamic State. Anything goes so long as Assad falls.
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