Islamist Saudi Arabia to train Syrian Rebels



The Pakistani Army is coming to the Middle East. 

The new "Army of Islam” in Syria 

• Let's try to understand this.  Islamist Saudi Arabia (that chops off people's hands) claims they want to train a "moderate" Army of Islam in Syria by using trainers from the Pakistani Army - a nation that hid Osama bin Laden and supports the Taliban.

Yes it is true - we are indeed totally fucked.

Saudi Arabia, having largely abandoned hope that the United States will spearhead international efforts to topple the Assad regime, is embarking on a major new effort to train Syrian rebel forces. And according to three sources with knowledge of the program, Riyadh has enlisted the help of Pakistani instructors to do it.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, along with the CIA, also supported the Afghan rebels against the Soviet-backed government during the 1980s. That collaboration contains a cautionary note for the current day: The fractured Afghan rebels were unable to govern after the old regime fell, paving the way for chaos and the rise of the Taliban. Some of the insurgents, meanwhile, transformed into al Qaeda and eventually turned their weapons against their former patrons reports Foreign Policy Magazine.

The Religion of Peace™
"I can't wait for my new Saudi weapons."

While the risk of blowback has been discussed in Riyadh, Saudis with knowledge of the training program describe it as an antidote to extremism, not a potential cause of it. They have described the kingdom’s effort as having two goals — toppling the Assad regime, and weakening al Qaeda-linked groups in the country.

Prince Turki, the former Saudi intelligence chief and envoy to Washington, said in a recent interview that the mainstream opposition must be strengthened so that it could protect itself “these extremists who are coming from all over the place” to impose their own ideologies on Syria.

The ramped up Saudi effort has been spurred by the kingdom’s disillusionment with the United States. A Saudi insider with knowledge of the program described how Riyadh had determined to move ahead with its plans after coming to the conclusion that President Barack Obama was simply not prepared to move aggressively to oust Assad. “We didn’t know if the Americans would give [support] or not, but nothing ever came through,” the source said. “Now we know the president just didn’t want it.” [...]

As Sayigh laid out in his Carnegie paper, Saudi Arabia is attempting to build “a new national army” for the rebels — a force with an “avowedly Sunni ideology” that could seize influence from mainstream Syrian opposition groups.

In addition to its training program in Jordan, Saudi Arabia also helped organize the unification of roughly 50 rebel brigades into “the Army of Islam” under the leadership of Zahran Alloush, a Salafist commander whose father is a cleric based in the kingdom.

Saudi nuclear weapons 'on order' from Pakistan

Ain't life just fucking grand!  It is stories like this that make me dig my mountain cave even deeper and lay in more food and ammo supplies.

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Saudi Arabia has invested in Pakistani nuclear weapons projects, and believes it could obtain atomic bombs at will, a variety of sources have told BBC Newsnight.

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While the kingdom's quest has often been set in the context of countering Iran's atomic programme, it is now possible that the Saudis might be able to deploy such devices more quickly than the Islamic republic.

See the full article at BBC News 

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It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.