Al-Qa'ida's Big Week in Syria

Last week al-Qa’ida’s two affiliates in Syria -- the al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant -- were in the news quite a bit.

First, on Wednesday it was reported that American-born jihadist Adam Gadahn had appeared in a new al-Qa’ida video urging Syrian rebels to reject Western assistance and turn their insurgency into a global jihad.

That same day, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad of The Guardian offered an in-depth look at al-Nusra’s strategy, including its management of resources such as the oil and gas fields and fertile agricultural areas in northeastern Syria. Initially, hearing “The Emir of Gas” describe the jihadists approach to governance is frightening, as it recalls why the Taliban was initially popular in Afghanistan, and how terrorist groups have learned the lesson from Hezbollah of the necessity of providing public services. However, as the “Emir” outlines the brutal logic behind an operation against a potentially disloyal village, and one oil worker laments that “We got rid of one despot [Bashar] and replaced him with another,” it is not so clear that they have learned from al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI)’s mistakes.

Abdul-Ahad reports that roughly 80 percent of the foreign fighters that had joined al-Nusra left after the fissure with AQI to form the ISIL. On Friday, it was revealed that this splinter group had assassinated one of the top commanders in the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in Syria’s Latakia province, one of several such attacks by the jihadists against their more secular counterparts. Initially, the FSA said this was tantamount to a declaration of war, and issued a 24-hour deadline to turn over the ISIL commander responsible. But by Sunday Al Jazeera (h/t Bill Roggio) was reporting that FSA leaders were walking back their threats, quoting a senior FSA commander as saying al-Qa’ida-affiliated fighters “are welcome if they help us fight the regime.”

Also on Friday, Bill Roggio reported that the Pakistani Taliban has deployed “experts in warfare and information technology” to assist Syrian jihadists. Wait, what? How does the TTP have the resources to do this? Has al-Qa’ida decided to shift its strategic center of gravity away from the Af/Pak region to Syria, or is this a way to fight somewhere without having to face U.S. drone strikes in the FATA? If the former, how are these operatives will transiting across theaters? If the latter, how the announced “reduction” in U.S. drone strikes and eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan affect AQ’s strategic calculus?

This also points to the inherent dangers of letting a conflict metastasize, as the question of whether or not to support the overthrow of Assad has taken on an entirely different character now that U.S. inaction has allowed the extremists to take over the rebellion against the regime. Although there are still legitimate arguments for/against assistance and/or intervention, the number of variables that we can not control either way has increased exponentially. This makes the potential margin for a successful outcome to the civil war from a U.S.-strategic perspective much, much, much narrower than it would have been if the White House had a clear idea of our interests in the region and decided which side to support in 2011, to say nothing of the humanitarian disaster that has emerged.