Wednesday, October 12, 2016

According to US media, there are Jihadi rebels and then there are moderate rebels and then there are "relatively moderate rebels": please don't confuse them

"As if Syria’s civil war wasn’t already complicated enough. Now a rebel group appears to be throwing Islamic State members, including Europeans, in a makeshift prison with Islamic law and capital punishment. Jaish al-Tahrir, an opposition group known for its relative moderation, is running a detention facility in northern Syria that holds about 300 people affiliated with the Islamic State who defected or were captured, the BBC reported Wednesday. Some of the detainees have been released, but others still held at the facility, in the rebel-held Idlib province, could face the death penalty in an Islamic court, Mohammad al-Ghabi, who heads Jaish al-Tahrir, told the news agency. The report noted that the detained Europeans include people who joined the Islamic State from countries such as France, the Netherlands and Poland, with an unspecified number already released in coordination with European embassies."