Death of rebel leader seen as key loss to Syria’s anti-Assad forces
McClatchy Foreign Staff
BEIRUT — A rebel commander who built the most effective faction in northern Syria of the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army has died of wounds he suffered last week in an airstrike on a meeting of high-level rebel and opposition figures, his unit announced Monday.
Saleh’s death was seen as a massive setback for the future of moderate Islamist rebel factions, which have suffered a series of defeats recently at the hands of the Assad government and al Qaida-affiliated rebel groups with which they’ve clashed. Widely seen as the U.S.-backed rebellion’s most effective military leader, Saleh had a reputation not only for driving his group’s battlefield prowess but also for being able to work effectively with the broad range of anti-Assad groups, from Western donors to al Qaida-inspired militants.
“It’s a real blow that probably puts an end to the question of whether there are moderate rebel factions effective enough to do business with,” said a Western military attache posted to Beirut, who regularly visits southern Turkey to meet with the rebels.
“He was backed by Qatar, at least until recently, and knew how to make Western figures comfortable with his goals for Syria, while at the same time commanding the same sort of battlefield respect from (ordinary) Syrians usually reserved for the more radical factions,” the attache said. “The rebels and the West just lost the one commander who might be willing to talk to the regime about a sort of peace and actually be able to deliver some sense of it.”
Read More: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/11/18/3384782/death-of-rebel-leader-seen-as.html
