Drie recente nieuwsberichten:
1) Omdat IS een behoorlijk groot gebied controleert, heeft de organisatie inmiddels ook een onderwijscurriculum ingesteld. Dit curriculum is in belangrijke mate geïnspireerd door officiële Saoedische schoolboeken, onze nominale bondgenoot in de strijd tegen het terrorisme:
Much of IS’s educational “curriculum” finds its roots in Saudi textbooks, especially at the middle school and high school levels. Arabic, literature, history, civic education, cultural values, and norms of behaviour—whether in a home or societal setting—are all taught according to a particular interpretation of Sunni Islam. [...]
The Saudi curriculum, much like what IS is urging Syrians and Iraqis under its control to teach and preach, imparts to the youth a narrow-minded, conservative, traditional worldview. It is intolerant of other religions and even of other sects in Islam.
2) Ondertussen hebben de 'gematigde' Syrische rebellen van het Syria Revolutionaries Front onlangs een gevoelige nederlaag geleden tegen Jabhat al-Nusra (AKA Al Qaeda in Syrië):
The incident is disturbing because the Obama administration plans to train and arm fighters of the Syria Revolutionaries Front sort, on the theory that they are “moderates.” But a present Syrian moderate is all too often a future al-Qaeda member; many of these affiliations are not particularly ideological, but have to do with who is winning and who has more money. Last July, the Daoud Brigade of the Free Syrian Army joined ISIL.
Jamal Marouf’s group in any case had sometimes fought alongside Syria’s al-Qaeda and last April said al-Qaeda was the West’s problem, not his. (Ouch!) He complained that aside from a one time payment some time ago of $250,000, he hadn’t received any appreciable aid from the West.
En verder:
The loyalties of fighters may also have to do with which group is seen as more indigenous and which as foreign agents. The Succor Front response to Jamal Marouf rebukes him for trying to code the al-Qaeda affiliate as foreign agents. But now that the US is openly siding with the Free Syrian Army and conducting bombing raids against ISIL and the Succor Front, it is moderates such as he that are in danger of being tagged as agents of Western imperialism.
3) En in Irak weigert de nog altijd door sjiitische hardliners gedomineerde regering vooralsnog soennitische stammen in West-Irak te bewapenen die tegen IS vechten:
The problem in Iraq is similar to that in Syria. The Baghdad government only wants to see ISIL destroyed if it can pick up the pieces and assert itself. It doesn’t want armed Sunni Arab tribesmen taking over al-Anbar, either. And Baghdad doesn’t trust the tribesmen, some of whom have fought the Shiite government in the past.
In Syria, Turkey is not getting involved very much in defending Kobane because it doesn’t want to see the leftist, Kurdish separatists of the PKK and their Syrian allies strengthened.
ISIL is benefiting from the ambivalence of the two major powers in the region to assert itself beyond what its military capabilities alone would really allow.
Probeer hier nog maar iets van te redden...
