Just How Extremist Are the Rebels in Syria?
At The Daily Beast, Jamie Dettmer reports, “Nearly half of the rebel forces battling to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are jihadist or hardline Islamists, a British defense consultancy has warned its private clients, thus contradicting claims by Obama administration officials that opposition ranks are predominantly moderate.” Jonathan Schanzer, a Middle East scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said, “[M]ost of the rebels fighting in Syria are fighting in the name of religion, and that augurs badly for what happens after Assad.”