Reuters | May 18, 2013 | JORDAN TIMES

BEIRUT — The most feared and effective rebel group battling President Bashar Assad, the Islamist Nusra Front, is being eclipsed by a more radical jihadi force whose aims go far beyond overthrowing the Syrian leader.

Al Qaeda’s Iraq-based wing, which nurtured Nusra in the early stages of the rebellion against Assad, has moved in and sidelined the organisation, Nusra sources and other rebels say.

Al Qaeda in Iraq includes thousands of foreign fighters whose ultimate goal is not toppling Assad but the anti-Western jihad of Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahri — a shift which could extend Syria’s conflict well beyond any political accord between Assad and his foes. The fighting has already cost 90,000 lives.

The breakup of an important part of Syria’s opposition, already splintered into hundreds of armed groups, worsens the dilemma faced by the West as it debates whether intervention to support the rebels will result in arms being placed in the hands of hostile Islamist militants. And if the West were to intervene, it may now be under pressure to attack Al Qaeda opposition forces rather than Assad’s.

“Nusra is now two Nusras. One that is pursuing Al Qaeda’s agenda of a greater Islamic nation, and another that is Syrian with a national agenda to help us fight Assad,” said a senior rebel commander in Syria who has close ties to the Nusra Front.

“It is disintegrating from within.”

Others said that Nusra’s Syrian contingent has already effectively collapsed, with its leader Abu Mohammad Al Golani keeping a low profile and his fighters drifting off to join other rebel groups.

Nusra fighters have claimed responsibility for the deadliest bombings of the two-year-old Syrian conflict and their brigades have led some of the most successful rebel offensives against Assad’s forces.

The group was formally designated a terrorist organisation by the United States six months ago, a step which Washington said was vindicated by a declaration in April that it was merging with Al Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq. Washington now says Nusra is little more than an Al Qaeda front.

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