An American reporter in Syria sits down to talk to four Western-educated, radical jihadists about the war and what they think Washington should do. By Anna Therese Day.
I
knocked over my tea. The explosion outside the house in northern Syria
startled me. But the Pakistani, the Kuwaiti, and the two Saudi fighters
breaking the Ramadan fast with me seemed unperturbed. “You wouldn’t be
so scared if you had Allah, Anna!” one of them said.
The four young men were members of a group called the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams—more commonly known as ISIS.
It is an organization that has close ties to Al Qaeda. One of the
quandaries for Washington as it approaches greater involvement in Syria
is how to try to bring down the hated Assad government, accused of using
chemical weapons on its own people, without handing power—and perhaps
those weapons—to radical jihadists such as ISIS. For their part, these
men wanted to convince me of the righteousness of their cause.
All
four of my dinner companions had left their respective countries to
join the “Syrian jihad against the Shia donkeys,” as one put it; each
said he was eager for his turn to become a “martyr for the global
jihad.” Yet, despite our many differences, our table shared three common
characteristics: we are all under 30, we are all Western-educated
college graduates, and we all speak fluent English.
“I first started learning English from American cartoons, but when I got older, I really liked Boy Meets World.
Do you know it?” asked 22-year-old Ayman. With his wide brown eyes and a
patchy attempt-at-a-beard, he looked like a teenager next to his older
brother and their stone-faced friends.
Had
we not been just miles away from the battlefield of Aleppo, much of the
dinner conversation would have been normal chatter among peers: the
young men asked about my family, my schooling, and of course, my love
life. They spoke fondly of their college days in Canada and the United
Kingdom, and said they hoped to find a Syrian bride because “Syrian and
Lebanese [women] are the most beautiful of the Muslims.”
Yet,
paradoxically, as they talked about building a future on this earth,
they also talked about a future in Paradise, as martyred suicide
bombers. “It is a dream,” said Mohammed, his eyes glazing over as he
spoke. The 24-year-old Kuwaiti engineering graduate explained that the
selection process for suicide missions is very competitive and that
“becoming a martyr” during Ramadan specifically is “like extra
points with Allah.” Among its recent operations, ISIS carried out
suicide attacks against the Mennagh Airbase of northern Syria, which was
later seized by the rebels.
“Tell America: we will fight you where ever you kill more Muslims. We are ready when you are.”
“ISIS
has proven remarkably adept at spreading their military resources
across large swathes of territory, joining battles at the pivotal
moment, and exploiting their superior organizational structures to
establish political control and influence over territory,” says Charles
Lister, an analyst at IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre
in London. Of the numerous armed groups in the Syrian opposition, ISIS
is not one of the larger forces. Various estimates put their numbers
somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 fighters. Yet their affiliation with
the decade-old
Islamic State of Iraq organization, once led by the infamous Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, has afforded them the international financial support and
guerrilla combat experience necessary to set them apart from the local
Syrian groups.
Before
they joined ISIS, Ayman and his older brother, Ahmad, were part of the
group called Jabhat al-Nusra. “We are like the special forces here,”
brags Ahmad. They switched to ISIS when the current Islamic State of
Iraq leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, announced the merger of the two groups in April. The merger was later rejected
by both Jabhat al-Nusra leader Abu Golani in Syria, and by the core
al-Qaeda head Ayman al-Zawahiri, presumed to be hiding in Pakistan. But,
despite minor clashes, the two groups have coordinated operations with other opposition forces in and around the cities of Aleppo, Idlib, al-Raqqa, and Deir ez Zour.
“ISIS
and Jabhat al-Nusra are essentially friendly rivals in that both groups
represent themselves as the al-Qaeda presence in Syria,” explains
Lister. “Politically, the two groups have subtly different outlooks,
with Jabhat al-Nusra still stressing its Syrian nature and the
limitation of its objectives to the Syrian theater. Conversely, ISIS has
a more transnational look.”
That
international aspect is precisely what brought Faraz, a 24-year-old
Pakistani to ISIS. Faraz, who lived for seven years in the UK, spoke
passionately about Western human rights abuses in the Muslim world, and
said he returned to Pakistan to stand with his fellow Pakistanis against
“the new era of American drone wars.” After two years in Pakistan, he
moved to Syria because he realized there’s “actually a war against the
entire Muslim world by the US, Israel, Europe and Iran.” (He does not
consider those who practice Shia Islam, the dominant religion of Iran,
to be Muslim. The Assad regime in Syria is largely composed of Alawites,
who belong to another Shia-linked sect regarded as heretical by
Al-Qaeda and other Sunni extremists.)
These
young men agreed to an interview with an American publication in secret
and on the conditions of anonymity, each seeing value in sharing his
perspective with Western audiences. This openness is a major departure
from the party lines of both ISIS and al-Nusra, both of which have been linked to the kidnapping of Western reporters and aid workers. Dozens of journalists have been taken hostage since the Syrian conflict began, with the numbers spiking in recent months. Al-Nusra and ISIS also have been accused of kidnapping members of the opposition that disagree with them.
Mohammed
vehemently denied these claims. “We only detain spies—regime spies,
Western spies, and spies from Iran. This is a war so we have to do what
is necessary to make us strong enough to defeat the Shia,” he insisted.
“If
any of the prisoners are really journalists, then I am sorry for that,”
shrugged Ayman. “But a million journalists have told the Syrian story,
and no story has changed the situation. So if we have to choose between
our security and that the world will wake up from one article, of course
we will choose our security! We are up against the E-Army [hackers who
support the Syrian regime], Iran, the CIA, and the Israelis so we have
to!”
Despite
their animosity towards the United States and its allies, over the
course of several meetings, all four men consistently called for
Washington to arm the rebels with more sophisticated weaponry. In the
most recent interviews, however, the tone shifted to a deeper mistrust
and paranoia about Western involvement in Syria.
“Even
if I didn’t have this, I wouldn’t take one from the Americans,” said
Faraz, as he patted his Kalashnikov. “The Israelis would make sure it
exploded in my hand. You [Americans] have your reasons to get involved
now, and the reasons are not humanitarian.” He recited a long litany of
U.S. military actions in the Muslim world that rarely if ever saved
lives, and most often brought death and destruction.
“If
the U.S. dares to ‘put boots on the ground’ here, they need to know
that we will blow them out of Syria,” said Mohammed, staring intensely.
“If they want another battle with us, we are ready for them like we are
in Afghanistan, like we are in Iraq. If the US cared about the Syrian
people, they would have done something before 100,000 Muslims [Syrians]
were killed.”
With this, Faraz added: “Tell America: we will fight you where ever you kill more Muslims. We are ready when you are.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment