• Qaeda Branch in Syria Pursues Its Own Agenda
    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/02/world/middleeast/in-pushing-its-own-agenda-for-syria-a-qaeda-franchise-turns-rebels-into-ene

    The group is headed by an Iraqi named Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Its fighters hail from across the Arab world, Chechnya and other parts of Europe and are commanded by local emirs to whom they pledge obedience, according to rebels in contact with the group.

    While ISIS fighters have lined up alongside rebels against the government, rebels said the group appears to focus on areas already wrested from Mr. Assad, even if that means displacing rebels.

    “The idea is that they are trying to control the areas that are already liberated,” said Thaer Shaib, a rebel fighter from Idlib Province. “We go to the front, we liberate areas and leave a few fighters behind in order to advance, and then they come and hit us in the back.”

    Throughout the scattered areas the foreign jihadis control along Syria’s northern border, they have banned smoking in public and attacked Kurdish villages, some of which had truces with the rebels.

    In Raqqa, the only regional capital to fall under full rebel control, ISIS has set up bases in government buildings, publicly executed members of the minority Alawite sect, to which Mr. Assad belongs, and detained activists who have protested against it.

    “They control through fear, by holding public executions, walking around in masks, showing their weapons, and killing and kidnapping anyone who stands against them or their acts,” said an activist in Raqqa who declined to give his name for fear that extremists would hunt him down.