US Downplays Concerns About Al-Qaida in Syria
WASHINGTON, September 4 (By Maria Young for RIA Novosti) – As the White House pushes Congress to back a military strike in Syria, it is drawing a distinction between Islamist extremists and “moderate,” secular forces among the opposition, insisting it can aid the latter without benefiting the former.
In testimony before a Senate panel on Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry denied that al-Qaida and affiliated Islamist forces had taken full control of the Syrian opposition, saying the number of fighters under the extremist al-Nusra Front linked to al-Qaida were “actually lower” today than in the past.
Instead, Kerry said, the Syrian opposition as a whole “has increasingly become more defined by its moderation, more defined by the breadth of its membership and more defined by its adherence to some … democratic process.”
“They reached out and expanded significantly their base within Syria,” Kerry went on, referring to what US officials have frequently termed the “vetted, moderate” component of the Syrian opposition. “They’ve built up a much more competent leadership.”
Critics in the United States and abroad, notably in Russia, have underscored the presence of al-Qaida and other Islamist forces among the Syrian opposition and have cited this as one of several basic arguments against US military action directed at the regime of President Bashar Assad.
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http://en.rian.ru/world/20130905/183172480/US-Downplays-Concerns-About-Al-Qaida-in-Syria.html
