There is no way that the Syrian armed groups can be blamed in the New York Times or the Western press for any crime. Western media submissively recycle the propaganda statements of the armed groups: they deny their own actions when a large number of civilians are killed, and they repeat their lies when they blame their own crimes on the regime itself. Unfailingly, whenever the armed groups perpetrate a car bomb or a massacre of civilians, the New York Times would come out with a citation like this one (about the car bomb that killed a large number of civilians inside a mosque): "Some Syrian fighters and anti-Assad activists reached by telephone said
they would not be surprised if the government were responsible for the
mosque explosion. “I expect the regime to be involved in this
assassination,” said Abu Tamam, a member of an insurgent group called
the Jundilla Battalion. “He is just a religious figure and not a state
figure. He used to have influence, but today he’s an extra burden on the
regime.”" So Abu Tamam was cited although he had no evidence and made not even an accusation, but simply said that "he won't be surprised". What kind of journalism is this? Would the New York Times ever cite a Palestinian saying that he/she would not be surprised if Israel was behind an act of violence perpetrated by a Palestinian armed group? But the death of Buti marks a watershed in a war within Islam in Syria. There are two Islams in Syria: there is the Salafite, Jihadi, Bin Ladenite Islam which is aligned with Qatar and Saudi Arabia and now receives support from US and EU and GCC countries. And then there is another Islam represented by the Mufti of Syria and Muhammad Sa`id Al-Buti (by the way, papers did not indicate that scores of civilians were killed with him including his own grandson--some Western media made it sound like he was assassinated with a sniper bullet and not a massive car bomb at a mosque in a civilian neighborhood) which is--to be sure--aligned with the regime but proposes a more enlightened, progressive and less sexist and less obscurantist Islam. I don't want any role for clerics, personally, and both version of Islam are aligned with tyrannical regimes, but you decide which of the two (versions of Sunni) Islam is better for Syria. Al-Buti studied in Al-Azhar during the Nasser era when the institution was most progressive and reformist and he carried such ideas back into Syria against a fanatic Salafite trend always existed in Syria and embraced by the Muslim Brotherhood and its GCC sponsors. In nutshell, this is not the first time that the US and EU align themselves with the fanatical, Jihadi, and reactionary Islam. But I have seen this film before and did not like the ending and will like the ending of the second film even less. Brace yourselves.