British Muslims flocking to fight Assad ‘may pose Islamist threat’

The BBC reported that “dozens” of Britons have travelled from London and the Midlands to 
join the uprising against President Bashar Assad – some linking 
up with militant Islamist 
groups.

Khalid Mahmood, Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, expressed concern that the situation had the potential to radicalise a new generation of jihadists.

“I am extremely concerned at the moment because I see similar things to what happened at the original stages of the Afghanistan war where we were supporting the mujahideen against the Russians,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

“We wanted to get the Russians out and we armed people, we encouraged people to go out there and fight in the jihad.”

Peter Neumann, professor of security studies at King’s College, London, said that, having initially been caught out by the revolutions of the Arab Spring, it was clear that al-Qaida was now trying to exploit the situation.

“Certainly al-Qaida is trying to take advantage of the situation in Syria,” he said.

“When the Arab revolutions first happened early last year, al-Qaida was quite silent, it was stunned. It was not the sort of thing that was meant to happen because al-Qaida is about armed revolution and all these revolutions were peaceful.

“But now that we first had the situation in Libya, now the situation in Syria, al-Qaida suddenly perceives an opportunity.”

Noman Benotman, of the anti-extremist Quilliam Foundation, said the numbers of foreign fighters in Syria were still relatively small.

However, he said that “activists” were exploiting the Islamic concept of umma or community to encourage young people to join jihadi groups.

“It is the issue of belonging. Some people don’t believe that they belong to this society, this country,” he told Today.

“It is very, very powerful, beyond the imagination, the concept of umma, especially when it comes to the extremists and the jihadists.”

Meanwhile, more than 40 people have been killed and at least 100 others injured in Syrian government air strikes on a residential area of a rebel-held town, international watchdog Human Rights Watch said yesterday.

The strikes on the town of Azaz in northern Syria levelled most of a poor neighbourhood and sent panicked civilians fleeing for cover.

So many people were wounded that the local hospital locked its doors, directing residents to drive to the nearby Turkish border so the injured could be treated on the other side.

Reporters from The Associated Press saw nine bodies in the immediate aftermath of the bombings, including a baby.

Human Rights Watch, which investigated the site of the bombing two hours after the attack, put the number at more than 40.

“This horrific attack killed and wounded scores of civilians and destroyed a whole residential block,” said Anna Neistat, the group’s acting emergencies director. “Yet again, Syrian government forces attacked with callous disregard for civilian life.”

HRW said two opposition Free Syrian Army facilities in the vicinity of the attack might have been the targets of the Syrian aircraft.

One was the headquarters of the local Free Syrian Army brigade two streets away from the block that was hit. The other was a detention facility where the Free Syrian Army held “security detainees” – government military personnel and members of pro-government shabiha militia. Neither of these facilities was damaged in the attack.