The United States has abandoned training rebel forces on the ground in Syria but not equipping them, or at least some of them, and over the weekend its military cargo planes dropped 50 tons of ammunition to rebel groups in the north of the country. All apparently reached their intended target: yet another hastily formed alliance intent on fighting both the Islamic State and the Assad regime.
Alas, despite being created just days ago, in keeping with Syrian rebels‘ almost constantly shifting alliances, it confusingly already has two names: the Democratic Forces of Syria and the Syrian Arab Coalition.
The former includes both Arab groups and the Kurdish YPG militia. However, because the Arab rebels are partly funded by Turkey, which in turn is waging war on the Kurds (and Isis), they have decided to call themselves the Syrian Arab Coalition – presumably partly so as not to offend their paymasters and also because the Arabs and Kurds cannot stand one another.
One is reminded of the Monty Python sketch from the Life of Brian about the many fractious and bickering independence movements claiming to be the People’s Front of Judea:
Brian: Excuse me.
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