New Militia Battles Islamist Rebels Near Damascus

[Purveyor]

Source: Agence France-Presse

08 February 2015 - 21H07

Former rebel militiamen who have switched sides and joined Syria's regime forces are engaged in a fierce battle against Islamist insurgents near Damascus, sources said on Sunday.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, pro-regime Jaysh al-Wafaa launched its "fiercest battle yet" on Saturday night against Jaysh al-Islam fighters near the rebel bastion of Douma, east of the capital.

"The fighting is ongoing now," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP on Sunday.

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The militia's task is to confront Jaysh al-Islam, the best-armed opposition group in the Damascus area, according to the Observatory and activists in Douma.

President Bashar al-Assad's regime "is financing and arming Jaysh al-Wafaa", Abdel Rahman said.

Read more: http://www.france24.com/en/20150208-new-militia-battles-islamist-rebels-near-damascus/

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. Changing loyalties in Syria. A lot of it is about money.

The rebel factions that grow are the ones that can pay and that have nice shiny arms.

[Xithras]

2. I was reading a bit about these guys last week.

Basically, a lot of the pro-democracy rebels have come to realize that there is no way they can win the country at this point. Between the religious rebels like ISIS and al Nusra, and the Assad military, the secular rebel groups control a relatively small...and rapidly shrinking...part of the country. At this point, many of the pro-democracy rebels are realizing that Syria has two options...it will be an Islamic state under ISIS or al Nusra, or it will survive as a secular state under Assad. ISIS and al Nusra have been consistently executing the pro-democracy rebels that they capture, so their future under that option is grim. Assad, on the other hand, continues to offer pardons to rebels who defect and join his side in the war.

Many of these buys are simply deciding that it's better to live under Assad's "benevolent dictatorship" than under ISIS's brutal theocracy.