Russian Warships Head To Syria In Show Of Power

[pampango]

17. "Once he goes the entire region will be engulfed in a firestorm..."

And that is what the French king Louis XVI said: "Apres moi le deluge." And indeed he was right. The Great Terror was not long in coming.

Juan Cole estimated a few months ago that 10% of the opposition fighters (admittedly some of the best fighters) were foreign jihadists. (Even 10% is a large absolute number in terms of how much damage they can do.That percentage, if accurate, is undoubtedly higher now. Cole is the only one who has any credibility with me who as given an estimate.

Here's a Cole posting in late January:

As the above piece makes clear, it is worrying that some of the recent military successes have been won by the Jabhat al-Nusra or Victory Front, hard line fundamentalists who may have an al-Qaeda-like ideology. This group is very minor in the revolution a a whole, representing a small percentage of the actual fighters, but the US has designated it a terrorist organization in hopes of isolating it from the rest of the opposition. (So far, as the SA article makes clear, there is close coordination between the group and the moderate Free Syrian Army.)