Vicious infighting among the takfiri wing of the US proxy forces in Syria and beyond has exposed the lie that was hitherto peddled with such deadly effect: that the inter-Muslim conflict has nothing to do with the Sunni-Shia issue.
When the proxy war against Syria began in March 2011, the Western regimes, their autocratic puppets in the Arab world and their media outlets relentlessly tried to portray the war against Syria as a war between Shia and Sunni Muslims.
As the conflict dragged on, it became clear that the Sunni-Shia matter had little to do with the ongoing war on Syria. To maintain the veneer of objectivity even the Saudi financed media outlets had to report on the growing tensions among the so-called “Salafi” militias.
In October 2013 when interviewing a takfiri member of Jabhat al-Nusra (JN), the Saudi owned Al-Hayat newspaper reported: “...in Abu Malik's opinion, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, leftists, secularists and nationalists are all infidels. For him, this is not open for debate. As for the Islamic sects, he believes that Shiites and Druze are infidels. And when it comes to Sunnis, Abu Malik considers that everyone who participates in the democratic process and the legislation of civil law is an infidel as well as those who vote for deputies in parliament. Furthermore, anyone who doesn’t consider those who vote to be apostates, he himself is an apostate.”
The ongoing fighting between the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) and dozens of other armed groups hiding behind Islamic titles once again exposed the fact that the war in Syria is not about Sunni-Shia conflict. All sides in the ongoing brutal war are “Sunni” and “Salafi.” The only difference between them is, who their masters are and the conflicting relationship between their political and financial bosses ranging from Washington, Tel Aviv to Riyadh.
To maintain the veneer of being democratic and liberal, the US openly and directly supports the FSA. Washington also backs the takfiri wing of the anti-Syrian groups by allowing its regional allies such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and Turkey to support “Islamic” groups through various means. The primary reason for this policy is to maintain the inter-Muslim conflict within the Sunni-Shia framework in order to weaken Islamic Iran and its strategic allies. However, this policy is now in total disarray not only due to disagreements among Washington’s regional vassals, but also due to the inconsistency of the takfiri ideology in Syria.
Since the beginning of the proxy-war, the US and its regional allies have been facilitating a military operational environment for the so-called “Islamic” groups operating under the Salafi label. Over the past 50 years, these groups never went to Palestine in such numbers as they are being allowed to travel to Syria from all corners of the world. Given this paradox, the takfiri groups were never able to formulate a consistent propaganda campaign.
The Takfiris in Syria that are outwardly opposed to the Saudi establishment “ulama” and were labeling them as deviant murji’ites, began actively promoting their sermons about the “jihad” in Syria. Then in the spring of 2013 came several key military defeats for the insurgents, which Israel could no longer ignore.
The Zionist entity launched air strikes against Syria in a desperate bid to provide some advantage to its proxy-forces operating there. This event once again exposed the lies of the takfiri groups claiming to fight for an Islamic state. Logically and factually it became impossible to explain to Muslims worldwide, since when does Israel provide air cover for those fighting for Islam or a just cause in general?
The crucial inconsistencies outlined above led to a natural conclusion we are witnessing today. Now “Sunnis” are fighting “Sunnis.” This situation creates a strategic dilemma for Washington, Tel Aviv and the Saudi tribe. Their decades-long marketing scheme of Sunni-Shia hatred is no longer relevant.
The internal war among the takfiri groups in Syria is going to spread to all corners of the world and will cause a rift within the US supported “salafi” elites and constituencies. The takfiri infighting has already begun dividing “salafi” groups in the Caucasus.
In Azerbaijan a leading pro-Aliyev “salafi” pundit Qamet Suleymanov openly accused another “salafi” preacher Alikhan Musayev of supporting Azeri takfiris fighting in Syria. In the Arab world followers of “salafi” preachers Mahdi Zeidan, Omar Mahmoud Othman aka Abu Qatada, Issam al-Barqawi aka Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Hajjaj al-Ajmi are at each other’s throats.
While this process will create unnecessary tensions within the Muslim world, in the long run the Muslim Ummah will benefit from the infighting among the main tool of imperialism in the Islamic world, i.e., the takfiri groups. This means that the US will not be able to actively use them in its strategic designs in the Muslim world as efficiently as they used to.
It will also lead to a decline in the soft-power appeal of the US-marketed “Islam” through the Saudi ruling family and significantly weaken the flow of young Muslims into the Saudi trap labeled as “true Sunna.”
Source: Crescent International