"Arms distributors are chafing at the strings Saudi Arabia has attached to its weapons transfers to Syrian insurgents"

Via FLC

"...Already there are reports that some rebel arms distributors are chafing at the strings Saudi Arabia has attached to its weapons transfers, while independent Salafi sheikhs and “honorable businessmen” stand ready and willing to support militant groups outside of the FSA’s umbrella. The independent Islamist brigades would be helped considerably if they organized their own umbrella organization to unify their ranks under the banner of jihad. (A new rebel group with moderate Islamist credentials calling itself the “Syrian Revolutionaries Front” tried to do just that earlier this month, though it seems that the effort immediately fizzled.)
If a unified jihadist opposition did manage to challenge the Free Syrian Army’s primacy in the coming months, it could be an ominous indicator of where Syria’s opposition is heading. We could see the Free Syrian Army’s central leadership beginning to placate the Islamists by adopting Islamist rhetoric or institutions such as a sharia council, or Saudi Arabia starting to hedge its support of the FSA by taking meetings with upstart Islamist “emirs.” Either way, it would mean that the jihad is very much on in Syria. It would also mean that the United States had better rethink its hands-off approach to the crisis."

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