Opinion: ISIS in Syria
"The regime may not have been so much as negligent here, as perhaps having reached some kind of “understanding” or “agreement” with ISIS, whether openly or behind the scenes. This is what explains the lack of air and rocket attacks by Syrian government forces on ISIS bases and fighters. To make the point even clearer: ISIS’s leadership and main bases in Syria are concentrated in the city of Raqqa.
The group’s foreign nature was no obstacle to its attempting to spread within Syria, infiltrating other armed Islamist groups such as the Ahrar Al-Sham and spreading in poor, disaffected areas lining the route between the rural areas of Deir Ezzor and Aleppo, passing through Raqqa. It exploited the dearth of weaponry and funding which some elements of the Free Syrian Army were suffering from, breaking them up and fighting others, while always subsequently creating an atmosphere of oppression and terror wherever it went, murdering residents of occupied areas in order to keep them quiet and under control. In this way, an “Al-Qaeda in Syria” was created, its presence and resources all no doubt directed against the Syrian people and their revolution in all those areas where the regime has lost control.
To conclude, regarding the matter of ISIS in Syria, we can say it is a purely “functional” organization, there to carry out a foreign agenda compatible with that of the Assad regime. The group’s role in Syria is akin to Hezbollah’s in Lebanon, or that of the armed militias in Iraq, only differing in the nature of the allegiances and the slogans, and what follows in terms of its actions. This means that the fight against ISIS runs parallel with the war against Assad and Hezbollah and the Iraqi militias. It is one war, one that cannot be divided up in any way: a war against both terror and extremism."