Sowing seeds of extremism in Syria

The seeds of blind extremism are gradually being sown in Syria with the deliberate intention of plunging the country deeper into crippling chaos and stifling anarchy. A video recently circulated on the internet shows a child who is commanded by the foreign-backed al-Qaeda militants in Syria to behead a pro-Assad supporter. This is believed to have taken place in the western city of Homs, located about 160 kilometers north of the capital, Damascus. The video also displays one of the militants at the scene who shows the severed head and places it on the trunk of the victim. In line with this policy of fanning extremism, Saudi Arabia is reportedly dispatching those on death row in the country to Syria in order to fight against Assad. A series of secret documents “leaked to the media” revealed on Monday that Saudi Arabia is sending death convicts to Syria to fight against Bashar Assad's government in return for pardon or remission of their punishment and financial support for their family. Among those on death row are drug traffickers, murderers and rapists. According to the document, the families of the convicts are not allowed to leave the county but they are cared for as long as the convict continue to fight along with the militants and remain loyal to the unholy cause. The convicts include 105 Yemenis, 21 Palestinians, 212 Saudis, 96 Sudanese, 254 Syrians, 82 Jordanians, 68 Somalis, 32 Afghans, 194 Egyptians, 203 Pakistanis, 23 Iraqis and 44 Kuwaitis. Given the fact that Saudi Arabia and Qatar have already been paying salaries to militants fighting in Syria against President Bashar Assad, this does not seem to be some bolt from a madman’s imagination. "The payment has been going on for months and the agreement was made on April 2 by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with logistical organization from Turkey where some Free Syrian Army factions are based," an Arab diplomat said on condition of anonymity. "The point of this is to encourage as many factions of the Syrian army to defect and to organize the FSA, control it and prevent any extremist organizations from joining it." To say that the payment is being made under the excuse of curbing extremist organizations is nothing more than a Freudian slip. In point of fact, extremism is the first step to downfall in any country and that is exactly what some regional Arab states which have been financing the militants in Syria are capitalizing on. After all, it is Washington which cherishes the greatest passion in promoting extremism in the region in general and in Syria in particular. Turkey has also been playing an active role in fomenting crisis in Syria and burgeoning extremism in the country. Ankara has set up a clandestine nerve center in Adana with allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar in order to “direct vital military and communications aid to Syria's rebels from a city near the border.” In fact, a triangle of antagonists comprising Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are working together in coordinated efforts in accordance with a carefully US crafted agenda in order to destabilize the government of Bashar Assad without an initial military intervention by Washington and the West. "It's the Turks who are militarily controlling it. Turkey is the main coordinator/facilitator. Think of a triangle, with Turkey at the top and Saudi Arabia and Qatar at the bottom," a Doha-based source told Reuters. As for Americans, "They are very hands-off on this. US intel are working through middlemen. Middlemen are controlling access to weapons and routes." All these efforts have been going on for months and the trio and the US have succeeded in exacerbating crisis in the country. Back in 2011, Qatar set up an army of Wahhabi forces to help overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad. The forces who later came to be known as the Free Syrian Army was initially comprised of 20,000 militants. The hard core was made up of 1,000 members of the militants fighting in Libya and 1,000 operatives of the Ansar al-Sunna, and the Iraqi Islamists that reportedly carried out 15 coordinated bomb attacks in Baghdad in 2011. Further to that, Qatar airlifted the 2,500 troops from Libya and Iraq to the southern Turkish town of Antakya in the border province of Hatay. Little by little, other al-Qaeda-linked militants joined the league and fought against the government of Assad. Strange to say, Washington is reluctant to engage in any military intervention at the moment but is monitoring every move in Syria and giving due instructions to Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar as to how to turn the situation in the country into one of utter extremism. Needless to say, for Washington, a Syria replete with extremist ‘child’ decapitators is far more strategically workable than a Syria bereft of its ruler through a military intervention.