There is now outright fighting among rebels who should be united in their efforts to overthrow the Assad regime. Loose-knit units of the Free Syrian Army have turned on fighters of the Al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), who have been notable for their brutality in areas they control and their refusal to work with other opposition units. As a result, Isis, which by many accounts has been one of the most effective forces fighting against Assad's armies, has threatened to abandon front-line positions in Aleppo to government troops. Such an action would have a catastrophic effect on the military situation in Syria's second city, which a year ago the FSA was vowing to take within days. A statement from ISIS also seemed to indicate that the organization would make similar battlefield withdrawals elsewhere, unless the attacks upon it ceased and those of its members who have been captured by mainstream FSA forces were freed. It is hard to conceive of a greater betrayal of the cause to which ISIS was supposed to be dedicated. Moreover, this treachery will not simply be confined to the surrender of territory which has been hard-won with the blood of many rebels. What ISIS has effectively done is to make itself an ally of Assad, joining the ranks of Hezbollah and the covert units of Iranian Revolutionary Guards who have thus far sustained this bloody dictatorship. Assad is not about to concentrate his fire on ISIS fighters when they are doing his bloody work for him, fighting mainstream FSA forces. Thus the Al-Qaeda group's retribution, and there will be a retribution, against the rest of the rebel army which had finally had enough of its disloyalty and double-crossing, will be conducted with the certainty that Assad's forces will not attack ISIS. Indeed it could even be that they will offer the terrorists support in terms of intelligence and weaponry. Such a Satanic alliance demonstrates the depravity of both parties. Yet while Assad will be using ISIS terrorists against the FSA, he will also be exploiting their presence on the battlefield to justify the claim that he made at the very start of the savagery in Deraa, which was that the whole revolt was taken up by foreign terrorists. And of course the presence of this Al-Qaeda offshoot is also highly convenient for Washington. With terrorists like that in the midst of the rebel fights, how could the Americans risk supplying lethal equipment that could very well fall into Al-Qaeda's hands? How could a devastating US aerial attack destroy Assad's armor and artillery and air assets, if it opened the way for a victory by terrorists? Thus ISIS is proving highly convenient for Assad and his allies in Russia, Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah territory, as well as for the Americans and their own allies who once threatened Assad with decisive military intervention. Indeed, there is only one inconvenience in this whole discreditable game, and that is an inconvenience that has now been overlooked so often, it has become quite easy to ignore. The ordinary people of Syria, whether external or internal refugees, continue to bleed and die in a conflict, which could have been over within weeks if the international community had intervened early and decisively.
