Al-Qaida gaining Syrian foothold

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In this Thursday, Aug. 9, 2012 photo provided by French Army, a team of French military medics and aides arrive at Amman Marka airport, Jordan. The airliner carrying 90 medical and logistics staff and 20 tons of medical aid, is destined to help refugees on the Jordanian-Syrian border.(AP Photo/ECPAD, Jerome Salles) (CP)

WASHINGTON -- Al-Qaida has advanced beyond isolated pockets of activity in Syria and is building a network of well-organized cells, according to U.S. intelligence officials, who fear the terrorists could be on the verge of establishing an Iraq-like foothold that would be hard to defeat if rebels eventually oust Syrian President Bashar Assad.

At least a couple of hundred al-Qaida-linked militants are operating in Syria and their ranks are growing as foreign fighters stream into the Arab country daily, current and former U.S. intelligence officials said. The units are spreading from city to city, with veterans of the Iraq insurgency employing their expertise in bomb-building to carry out more than two dozen attacks. Others are using their experience in co-ordinating small units of fighters in Afghanistan to win new followers.

In Syria on Friday, rebel commanders appealed for new and better weapons from abroad, complaining Assad's forces have them badly outgunned from the air and on the ground. In fact, rebel leaders say with so little aid coming to them from the U.S. and other nations, they are slowly losing the battle for influence against hardline militants. They say their fighters are sometimes siding with extremists who are better funded and armed so they can fight the far stronger Syrian army.

It all could point to a widening danger posed by extremists who have joined rebels fighting the Assad government. Although the extremists are ostensibly on the same side as Washington by opposing Assad, U.S. officials fear their presence could fundamentally reshape what began as a protest movement for reform composed of largely moderate or secular Syrians. The opposition expanded into a civil war, pitting Assad's four-decade dictatorship against a movement promising a new, democratic future for the country.

The intelligence also offers some explanation for the Obama administration's reluctance to offer military aid to the anti-Assad insurgency, which Washington says it is still trying to better understand. U.S. officials have repeatedly rejected providing any lethal assistance to the conflict that has killed at least 19,000 people over the past 17 months. With the U.S. weighing its options, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will discuss the situation with top Turkish officials and Syrian opposition activists in Istanbul today.

Officials described the intelligence on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss confidential internal talks among intelligence and administration officials

Underscoring the administration's desire to step up efforts against Assad without providing weapons, the U.S. set largely symbolic sanctions Friday on Syria's state-run oil company and Iranian-backed Hezbollah. It accused Iran and the Lebanese Shiite militant group of propping up Assad.

Neither action will mean much immediately. Americans have been banned from doing business with Hezbollah since the U.S. declared it a terrorist organization in the 1990s. Decades of U.S. sanctions against Syria have hampered energy trade between the two countries. U.S. President Barack Obama blacklisted new imports a year ago.

Meanwhile, Syrian rebels were running low on ammunition and guns Friday and appealed for international help as government forces tried to consolidate their control over Aleppo, the country's largest city and a deadly battleground in recent weeks.

"The warplanes and helicopters are killing us, they're up there in the sky 15 hours a day," said Mohammad al-Hassan, an activist in Aleppo's main rebel stronghold of Salaheddine. "I don't know how long this situation can be sustained."

As for a possible diplomatic solution, former Algerian foreign affairs minister and longtime U.N. official Lakhdar Brahimi emerged as a candidate to replace Kofi Annan as envoy to Syria. Annan announced his resignation last week, ending a six-month effort that failed to achieve even a ceasefire as the country descended into civil war.

A fresh wave of civilians was streaming across the border into neighbouring Turkey Friday. Officials said more than 1,500 Syrians arrived over the previous 24 hours, increasing the number of refugees in Turkey to about 51,500.

In Syria, Assad, a member of the country's Alawite minority, has blamed the uprising against him on Sunni terrorists and the West. American officials say the claims are only an excuse for brutal tactics of repression as part of a desperate attempt to hold onto power. But they concede the extremist presence in Syria is growing.

U.S. officials said the number of al-Qaida operatives remains small in the context of the larger anti-government insurgency, with perhaps only 200 or so who are active. But ranks are growing.

Once operating as disparate, disconnected units, the al-Qaida cells are now communicating and sometimes co-operating on missions, with a command-and-control structure evolving to match more sophisticated operations in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said. The co-ordination is sometimes as good as that of Syria's mainstream rebels.

"There is a larger group of foreign fighters... who are either in or headed to Syria," State Department counterterrorism co-ordinator Daniel Benjamin told reporters recently. He said Syrian opposition groups "assured us that they are being vigilant and want nothing to do with al-Qaida or with violent extremists."

Still, the administration clearly has reservations. Speaking earlier this week, Clinton stressed a need for Syrians to avoid sectarian warfare when the Assad government falls, as the U.S. insists will happen.

-- The Associated Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 11, 2012 A22