Al Qaeda (Sunni) vs. Assad (Shia)

Patriots,

I reported in WR 12-59 that the Patriarch of Syria said foreigners are ripping apart Syria. I have said for a long time that Saudi Arabia and the King of Jordan want a Sunni counter weight to Shia Iran. In fact, I believe one could make the case that all the nations that fell in the Arab Spring: Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Algeria were part of Saudi Arabia's grand design to create a Sunni bulwark against Iran. The Patriarch's belief is reinforced by the facts below.

First, let's consider what God told Isaiah to write.
Isa 17:1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
Isa 17:2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid.
Isa 17:3 The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the LORD of hosts.

Isaiah 17 is a dual prophecy and it jumps back and forth between the two fulfillments. Part of it concerns the defeat of both Damascus and the Northern Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians in 730-720 BC. The rest of it concerns the coming End Times because Damascus has never become a heap of ruins. Isaiah 17:2 states that the defeat of Israel and Aram (Damascus) didn’t result in a return to God as foretold in Isaiah 17:7-8.

(Return to God) Isa 17:7 At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel.
Isa 17:8 And he shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands, neither shall respect that which his fingers have made, either the groves, or the images.
Isa 17:9 In that day shall his strong cities be as a forsaken bough, and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel: and there shall be desolation.

As you can see Isaiah 17:9 says they will leave their strong cities to become desolate because of the Israelites. This didn’t happen in the past and is what leads scholars to conclude that Israel will cause the future destruction of Damascus. Whether directly or indirectly remains to be seen. Although Syria’s internal revolt is currently threatening the city of Damascus, it probably won’t result in its reduction to rubble. But no one would be surprised to see the Syrian government launch an attack on Israel to change the focus and direction of the struggle, and no one doubt’s Israel’s determination to respond in kind. I believe Isaiah 17 is a prophecy that could be fulfilled at any moment.

Saudi rulers, seeing Bashar Assad on the verge of defeating the opposition to his rule, are turning al Qaeda (AQ) Iraqi cells loose against him. Saudi agents used their pull with Iraqi Sunnis to persuade AQ leaders that Assad and his Alawite regime were their most dangerous foe. The same message was also broadcast by their Pakistan-based leader Ayman al Zawahri. AQ strength was fast building up in Syria, say US intelligence agencies tracking the jihadists’ Middle East movements – ten days before Zawahri Sunday, Feb. 11 issued his videotaped instruction to all combat strength in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey to converge on the Syrian battlefield.
Monday, Iraq’s acting interior minister Adnan al-Assadi confirmed that “a number of jihadists had gone to Syria,” reporting also that the price of weapons in Mosul had risen because they were being sent to the opposition in Syria “from Baghdad to Nineveh [province].”

Counter-terror sources estimate that the bulk of the 1,500-strong Iraq-based AQ network– Syrians, Egyptians, Libyans, Mauritanians, Pakistanis, Lebanese and Palestinians – have headed to Syria. This accounts for the sharp drop in terrorist attacks inside Iraq.

The jihadists are making it across the Syrian border, despite nightly battles with the Iraqi army. Tehran ordered Maliki's govt. to block AQ's passage across the Syrian border. The newly-arrived AQ cells were almost certainly behind the Aleppo car bombings Friday, Feb. 10, which claimed the lies of 28 people, most security officials, and injured more than 200.

After virtually crushing most of the pockets of resistance to his rule, Assad ruler may well find himself up against the new threat of jihadist terror. After battling American troops for nine year, AQ from Iraq will not be easy to vanquish.

Ironically, they infiltrated into Iraq from Syria across same border they are now breaching in the opposite direction. After the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Assad regime gave AQ forward bases and charged a fee of $10,000 or more for each individual crossing into Iraq with Syrian security cover.

AQ terrorists are therefore familiar with Assad’s security forces’ methods of operation and terrain and know how to elude them. Even when the Assad regime and AQ were in close cahoots against the US war effort in Iraq, the Islamists kept the secrets of their hideouts and training centers from the knowledge of Syrian security and military intelligence. They can now make a beeline for their old clandestine haunts and launch surprise assaults on their former allies.

In this regard, Assad and his intelligence advisers blundered badly when they decided to release the noted AQ theoretician and strategist Abu Mus’ab al-Suri aka Mustafa Abdul-Qadir. Born in Aleppo, he fought the Assads for more than three decades. Yet he was freed for two reasons:
1. Abu Mus’ab is Al-Zawahri ideological and tactical opponent and rival. The Syrians counted on him heading for Iraq and countermanding his antagonist’s directives to move jihadist strength into Syria. But now they have lost him. His whereabouts are unknown.
2. Assad had a score to settle with Britain for backing the opposition to his rule. Abu Mus’ab was the mastermind of the July 7, 2005 terrorist attacks on London’s transport system and 52 deaths, as well as the Madrid train bombings of March 11, 2004 which left 191 dead. The Syrian ruler had hoped that on the loose, Abu Mus’ab would start a fresh wave of bombing attacks in the UK. There is a $5 million US bounty on his head. His encyclopedia “Call for Global Islamic Resistance has been a template for jihadists.

Neither of Assad’s calculations was borne out. He now fears that one his most dedicated foes will now be gunning for him. In his videotape statement, Al Zawahri ordered the mobilization of AQ strength across the Middle East: “Wounded Syria is still bleeding day after day and the butcher isn’t deterred and doesn’t stop,” he said Sunday. “However, the resistance of our people in Syria is escalating and growing…”

Riyadh, even after giving Syria’s Sunni-led opposition arms and funding to stiffen their resistance to the regime, sees them falling back in the face of brutal military massacres. Turning to their Sunni friends in Iraq, Saudi agents asked them to convince AQ leaders to make Syria their primary war front and Alawite Bashar Assad’s overthrow their first priority - before even the ouster of Shiite Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad. The Saudis argued that Assad’s survival would strengthen Iran’s and the Shiites’ grip on Baghdad, whereas his removal would weaken both their enemies. Riyadh therefore laid on the money, logistics and arms for AQ’s transfer from Iraq to Syria in the hope of energizing the flagging anti-Assad opposition’s struggle.

Finally, after eleven months, Syrian rebels find themselves sharing a broad base of operations with Sunni Muslims, Turks, Arabs, AQ, NATO, U.S. and other Western allies. Earlier fears in Washington that Iran would mobilize AQ against American targets have been turned aside by Saudi Arabia getting in first to enlist the Islamist jihads against the pro-Iranian Syrian regime.

Look Up Your Redemption Draws Nigh!

Alan