Idriss the Grim
“The new weaponry will be channelled through the Supreme Military Command, a Western-backed rebel body headed by Selim Idriss, a general who defected from Mr Assad’s forces, and whose connections to moderate groups America has been testing with supplies of food and medicine. America’s programme, likely to be based in Jordan, on Syria’s southern border, may in effect amount to a beefing up of a Saudi operation there, which already involves the CIA in training vetted rebels…………. Some reckon it is even too late to achieve the more modest goals of bringing the fissiparous rebel groups under a single command structure and marginalising more extreme elements, in particular the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra. Once a group has seen its fortunes fall, it is hard to resuscitate it. Take, for example, Shuhada Suria (Martyrs of Syria). Just a year ago this group, which operates in the north-west province of Idleb and whose leader sits on the Supreme Military Command, was a leading fighting force. But it has faltered in part because funding has shrivelled, prompting defections to stronger groups, usually more Islamist ones………….”
General Salim Idriss is the man the West (US administration) and presumably Saudi Prince Bandar Bin Sultan Bin Yamama is looking at to lead Syria if and when it is liberated by NATO and Bernard-Henri Levy. They may consider him the equivalent of a Yemeni outcome for Syria. In Yemen, the GCC absolute tribal rulers engineered a final resignation of the dictator Ali Saleh and replaced him with his vice president, Generalissimo Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi Bin Zombie (the last name was given him by a Saudi journalist-tweeter). Hadi is famous for breaking post-Saddam Arab records for popular votes (about 99.8%, something not even Kim Jong-Un can get). Yemen is still engulfed in a multi-pronged civil war.
General Idriss looks like a highly unlikely leader for Syria, or of any other place for that matter. But then in fairness, some twelve years ago Bashar Al Assad did not look very ‘leader-ly‘ either. He looks like he should not even be expected to run his supporters in Saudi Arabia or Bahrain. More like a catfish in a pond full of Jihadi and other sharks, and we all know there is something wrong with that besides mixing salt and sweet waters.
Yesterday General Abduljabbar Al-Akeedi, apparently chief of the Revolutionary Military Leadership in Aleppo (wtf that be), was reported in Al-Quds Al-Arabi to have resigned from the FSA command in protest. He claimed that the Free Syrian Salafi Army has failed. Could be merely discontent with Idriss as well, could be a premonition of outcome of the battle for Aleppo. Could be both.
Cheers
mhg