ABC News on the Syrian rebels

Aballah sent me this report:
"I just saw a feature on ABC News a few hours ago.

Apparently they had a correspondent (I don't remember who) who slipped into Syria and interviewed some fighters eating their "Last Supper of sorts", as he put it. Very large, generous meal.

They had a voiceover mini-segment on a child with a large scar on his neck. He said government forces dragged him with a wire. The next day, the correspondent said, the child came back crying said the scar was caused by an accident (implying that possibly his parents admonished him and forced him to lie to the reporter in order to avoid more trouble with gov forces). This was the "children involved in the conflict" aspect that the host (Juju Chang) mentioned in a disapproving tone in the hook before commercials and the story. (After the story, her general tone of disgust and disturbance is gone. She looks clearly emotional, affected by the closeup interviews of children.).

Next, the reporter meets some other fighters. They have different accents. Apparently the situation gets tense and they ask him to leave. He mentions foreign fighters and "even Al Qaeda" getting involved in the conflict. He reports through voice-overs and narration that the fight is against Bashar al-Assad, the dictator, but also that they want to establish an Islamic state.

Main themes: >The dictatorial regime of Al-Asad is brutal and targets children. It tortures (they interview an English teacher tortured by al-Asad's forces. "they're not even human", he says) > Generally positive treatment of rebels but ends in ominous tone of potential of rebellion to be taken over by Islamists.

I think the US media is sowing the seeds of suspicion in case the Islamists get "out of control" after the regime is undone. Syria is different from Egypt, but it's also quite likely that overwhelming popular sentiments will sway the post-Asad goverment's relations towards Israel and others in the region, regardless of how close the ruling party is to Saudi/Qatar."