In Damascus on Tuesday, men helped a wounded girl who survived what activists said was an airstrike by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Bassam Khabieh/Reuters
Saudis Back Syrian Rebels Despite Risks -- Robert Worth, New York Times
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — On his eighth trip to fight with the rebels in Syria, in August, Abu Khattab saw something that troubled him: two dead children, their blood-soaked bodies sprawled on the street of a rural village near the Mediterranean coast. He knew right away that his fellow rebels had killed them.
Abu Khattab, a 43-year-old Saudi hospital administrator who was pursuing jihad on his holiday breaks, went to demand answers from his local commander, a notoriously brutal man named Abu Ayman al-Iraqi. The commander brushed him off, saying his men had killed the children “because they were not Muslims,” Abu Khattab recalled recently during an interview here.
It was only then that Abu Khattab began to believe that the jihad in Syria — where he had traveled in violation of an official Saudi ban — was not fully in accord with God’s will. But by the time he returned to Riyadh, where he now volunteers in a program to discourage others from going, his government had overcome its own scruples to become the main backer of the Syrian rebels, including many hard-line Islamists who often fight alongside militants loyal to Al Qaeda.
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My Comment: The Saudis want Syrian President Assad and his supporters out of Syria .... but like most conflicts the players are only focused on winning the war and not on what the consequences may be in the future.
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