The terrorists fighting us now ?

We just finished training them (washingtonpost)

No, the enemy of our enemy is not our friend.
Souad Mekhennet
By Souad Mekhennet August 18 Follow @smekhennet
Souad Mekhennet, co-author of The Eternal Nazi, is a visiting fellow at Harvard, J
ohns Hopkins and the Geneva Centre for Security policy.
Fighters from Al Nusra Front, the al-Qaida group in the Levant, near Damascus. T
heir banner says, We fight in Syria and our eyes are on Jerusalem. (Rami Al-Sayed/A
FP/Getty Images)
In recent years, President Obama, his European friends, and even some Middle Eas
tern allies, have supported rebel groups in Libya and Syria. Some received trainin
g, financial and military support to overthrow Muammar Gadhafi and battle Bashar
al Assad. It s a strategy that follows the old saying, The enemy of my enemy is my
friend, and it has been the American and allied approach for decades in deciding
whether to support opposition groups and movements.
The problem is that it is completely unreliable
and often far worse than other s
trategies. Every year there are more cases in which this approach backfires. The
most glaring and famous failure was in Afghanistan, where some of the groups ta
ught (and supplied) to fight the Soviet Army later became stridently anti-Wester
n. In that environment, Al Qaeda flourished and established the camps where perp
etrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were trained. Yet instead of learning fr
om its mistakes, the United States keeps making them.
Washington and its allies empowered groups whose members had either begun with a
nti-American or anti-Western views or found themselves lured to those ideas in t
he process of fighting. According to interviews with members of militant groups,
such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria s Al Nusra Front (which is aligned wi
th al Qaeda), that is exactly what happened with some of the fighters in Libya
and even with factions of the Free Syrian Army.
In the East of Syria, there is no Free Syrian Army any longer. All Free Syrian Ar
my people [there] have joined the Islamic State, says Abu Yusaf, a high-level sec
urity commander of the Islamic State, whom The Washington Post s Anthony Faiola wr
ote about last week.
The Islamic State is the most successful group for now, controlling the main are
as of Syrian oil and gas fields. It has also acquired large amounts of cash, gol
d (from banks in the areas they control) and weapons in its fight against the ar
mies in Syria and Iraq. When the Iraqi Army fled from Mosul and the other areas,
they left behind all the good equipment the Americans had given them, Abu Yusaf s
ays.
From IS to the Mahdi army you see groups that basically are not our friends but w
ho became more powerful because we have handled the situations wrong, says a seni
or U.S. security official, who spoke under the condition of anonymity.
Some European and Arab intelligence officials also voiced their worries and frus
tration about what they call the mistakes the United States has made in handling
the uprisings in Arab states. We had, in the early stages, information that radi
cal groups had used the vacuum of the Arab Spring, and that some of the people t
he U.S. and their allies had trained to fight for democracy in Libya and Syria had
a jihadist agenda already or later, [when they] joined al Nusra or the Islamic
State, a senior Arab intelligence official said in a recent interview. He said th
at often his U.S. counterparts would say things like, We know you are right, but
our president in Washington and his advisers don t believe that. Those groups, say
Western security officials, are threats not only in the Middle East, but also in

the United States and Europe, where they have members and sympathizers.
The official s account has been corroborated by members of the Islamic State in an
d outside the Middle East, including Abu Yusaf, the military commander. In sever
al interviews conducted in the last two months, they described how the collapse
of security during Arab Spring uprisings helped them recruit, regroup and use th
e Western strategy to support and train groups that fight dictators
for their ow
n benefits. There had [also] been some British and Americans who had trained us d
uring the Arab Spring times in Libya, said a man who calls himself Abu Saleh and
who only agreed to be interviewed if his real identity remained secret.
Abu Saleh, who is originally from a town close to Benghazi, said he and a group
of other Libyans received training and support in their country from French, Bri
tish, and American military and intelligence personnel
before they joined the Al
Nusra Front or the Islamic State. Western and Arab military sources interviewed
for this article, confirmed Abu Saleh s account that training and equipment were give
n to rebels in Libya during the fight against the Gadhafi regime.
Abu Saleh left Libya in 2012 for Turkey and then crossed into Syria. First I foug
ht under what people call the Free Syrian Army but then switched to Al Nusra. And
I have already decided I will join the Islamic State when my wounds are healed, t
he 28-year-old said from a hospital in Turkey, where he is receiving medical tre
atment. He had been injured during a battle with the Syrian Army, he said, and w
as brought to Turkey with false documents.
Some of the Syrian people who they tr
ained have joined the Islamic State and others jabhat al Nusra, he said, smiling.
He added, Sometimes I joke around and say that I am a fighter made by America.
For a long time, Western and Arab states supported the Free Syrian Army not only
with training but also with weapons and other materiel. The Islamic State comma
nder, Abu Yusaf, added that members of the Free Syrian Army who had received tra
ining
from the United States, Turkey and Arab military officers at an American b
ase in Southern Turkey have now joined the Islamic State. Now many of the FSA peo
ple who the West has trained are actually joining us, he said, smiling.
These militants are preparing for the day that Western governments catch on. We d
o know the U.S. will go after the Islamic State at some stage, and we are ready
for it. But they should not underestimate the answer they will get, said an IS sy
mpathizer in Europe who goes by the name Abu Farouk. He added that the unconditio
nal support of the United States toward the government of outgoing premier Nuri a
l-Maliki, which he says has oppressed Iraqi Sunnis, and America s pampering Iran,
ich is mainly Shia, made the Islamic State a more attractive alternative for som
e Sunnis who felt angry about double standards.
Thanks to the Arab spring and the West fighting all these rulers for us, we had e
nough time to grow and recruit in the Middle East, Europe and the U.S, Abu Farouk
said. Then he paused for some seconds and smiled. Actually, we should say, than
k you, Mr. President.

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