Whom Are We Arming?

President Obama said this week that part of the US strategy for containing the Islamic State is to provide arms to Syrian rebels, provided they are “moderate.”

It might be a challenge to find moderate ones. A year ago, Ben Farmer reported in the Telegraph on a IHS Jane’s study of the Syrian rebels. It’s not encouraging.

Jane’s “estimates there are around 10,000 jihadists – who would include foreign fighters – fighting for powerful factions linked to al-Qaeda.

“Another 30,000 to 35,000 are hardline Islamists who share much of the outlook of the jihadists, but are focused purely on the Syrian war rather than a wider international struggle.

“There are also at least a further 30,000 moderates belonging to groups that have an Islamic character, meaning only a small minority of the rebels are linked to secular or purely nationalist groups.”

In particular, the study discovered that the “Free Syrian Army” was coming increasingly under the influence of the Islamic State. Farmer reported, “ISIL has become more prominent in rebel-held parts of Syria in recent months. Members in northern Syria have sought to assert their dominance over the local population and over the more moderate rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA).”

It wouldn’t be the first time the US supplied arms to freedom fighters who came back to bite us.