Citat:
Ursprungligen postat av fernebo
En fransk läkare som arbetat i Aleppo intervjuas av Reuters. Det är uppenbarligen inte särskilt många syrier som strider för rebellerna i Aleppo:
Citat: PARIS (Reuters) - Foreign Islamists intent on turning Syria into an autocratic theocracy have swollen the ranks of rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad and think they are waging a ”holy war”, a French surgeon who treated fighters in Aleppo has said.
Jacques Beres, co-founder of medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, returned from Syria on Friday evening after spending two weeks working clandestinely in a hospital in the besieged northern Syrian city.
In an interview with Reuters in his central Paris apartment on Saturday, the 71-year-old said that contrary to his previous visits to Homs and Idlib earlier this year about 60 percent of those he had treated this time had been rebel fighters and that at least half of them had been non-Syrian.
”It's really something strange to see. They are directly saying that they aren't interested in Bashar al-Assad's fall, but are thinking about how to take power afterwards and set up an Islamic state with sharia law to become part of the world Emirate,” the doctor said.
The foreign jihadists included young Frenchmen who said they were inspired by Mohammed Merah, a self-styled Islamist militant from Toulouse, who killed seven people in March in the name of al-Qaeda.
Läkare utan Gränser har ju inga partsintressen i konflikten. Det faktum att en av deras grundare, som själv vistats flera omgångar i Syrien, nu hävdar att minst hälften av rebellerna är utlänningar är därför remarkabelt.
Reutersartikeln har nu också publicerats i Chicago Tribune:
Jihadists join Aleppo fight, eye Islamic state, surgeon says
Beres säger att han nu ändrat uppfattning och tar tillbaka tidigare påståenden att de flesta av rebellerna är syrier:
During his previous visits to Syria - in March and May - Beres said he had dismissed suggestions the rebels were dominated by Islamist fighters but he said he had now been forced to reassess the situation.
Han berättar om de rebeller som han själv behandlat:
”Some of them were French and completely fanatical about the future,” he said. ”They are very cautious people, even to the doctor who treated them. They didn't trust me, but for instance they told me that Mohammed Merah was an example to follow.”
Mohammed Merah är den islamist som mördade tre franska soldater, en rabbin och tre judiska barn i Frankrike tidigare i år.
Jacques Beres påpekar också att långt fler människor dödats än vad som framkommit av de
body counts som olika källor publicerat:
”What people have to know is that the number of dead is a far cry from what's been announced. I'd say you have to multiply by two to get the real figure.”
Jag nämner det med tanke på den diskussion vi hade tidigare i tråden om dödssiffrorna, där jag hävdade att baserat på erfarenheterna från Irak bör man nog åtminstone fördubbla
body counts för att få fram det egentliga antalet döda.
EDIT: Tidigare post av
fernebo citerad.