“The flow of foreign fighters to Syria to join the war against Bashar Assad’s dictatorship is becoming the largest in the history of the global jihad, and the Syrian battleground is on the way to outstripping the 1980s Afghan war against the Soviets as a training ground for Islamic militants. Security services around the world are becoming increasingly alarmed at the implications for the safety of their citizens. American intelligence officials now put the number of foreign fighters who have gone to Syria since the war began in 2011 at between 8,000 and 10,000. Other sources put the total even higher, up to 12,000. The largest contingent is probably Saudis. Saudi sources put the number of their citizens who have gone to wage jihad in Syria at 1,200, of whom 300 are reported to have died on the battlefield. Jordanian sources report about a thousand Jordanians………….”
The prospects look grim. All forms of Jihad are humorless, but this Syrian Jihad is even more so. I mean with contingents from Saudi Arabia, Gulf Salafis, Chechnya, Bosnia, Libya, Algeria, and Jordan (especially Jordan) who can expect anything else? If there are such things as Algerian and Libyan humor, I have never heard of them. Have you ever heard of Wahhabi humor (there is some but the jokes start like this: these three true Salafi believers dive into a river of wine near a couple of skinny-dipping skinny houris, and………….)?
Not that Syrian humor was well-known even before the current tragedy started in 2011. Remember, the Baath Party has been in power in Syria since 1963. In Iraq it ruled briefly in 1963, but came back with a vengeance in 1968 to wipe out any Iraqi sense of humor (assuming any existed after four centuries of humorless Turkish rule). The terms “Baath” and “humor” don’t fit well in the same sentence, or in the same paragraph, or in the same chapter. Come to think of it, I can think of many terms that don’t fit anywhere near the word ‘humor’: Salafi, Al Saud, Al Khalifa (well, maybe just LOL), mullah, functionary, bureaucrat, Mitch McConnell, among others.
Cheers
mhg
