Syrian Double Trouble???

[The Puss]

Less and less confident that arming the rebels is the right thing long term.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23285245
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23283079

Key Free Syria Army rebel 'killed by Islamist group'
A senior rebel commander in Syria is reported to have been killed by rebels from a rival group linked to al-Qaeda.
Kamal Hamami, of the Free Syrian Army's (FSA) Supreme Military Council, was meeting members of the rival group "to discuss battle plans".
An FSA spokesman said he was told by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant that they had killed Mr Hamami.
The killing is part of an escalating struggle within the armed uprising between moderates and Islamists.
The BBC's Paul Wood says a civil war within a civil war is building within the opposition as the two sides engage in a battle that is partly over the spoils and partly ideological.
Kamal Hamami, also known as Abu Basir al-Ladkani, worked in a butcher's shop before the conflict began, but went on to form one of the FSA's key brigades in his native port city of Latakia.
He is believed to have met members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Latakia to inform them of a planned offensive in the area, before being ambushed and shot dead.
A spokesman for the FSA's Supreme Military Council said Mr Hamami had been driving through Latakia when he and fellow fighters encountered a checkpoint run by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - the main group linked to al-Qaeda.
The rebels manning the checkpoint had refused to let him pass, saying he would need to get permission from their leader, and he had told them they had to take their checkpoint down.
As the argument raged, according to this account, one of the fighters - said to be a foreign jihadi from Iraq - raised his weapon and shot Kamal Hamami dead.
"The Islamic State phoned me saying that they killed Abu Basir and that they will kill all of the Supreme Military Council," FSA spokesman Qassem Saadeddine told Reuters news agency.
The FSA was established in 2011 by army deserters based in Turkey and is said to have some 40,000 members.
Although the FSA have had some successes in the fight against President Assad's forces, they say they will be unable to win the war unless they acquire more sophisticated weaponry.
In recent months, Western and Arab nations have agreed to step up support for moderate Syrian rebels in their battle against President Bashar al-Assad's forces.
But many in the West are nervous about heavy weaponry falling into the hands of radical groups.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq announced in April that it was merging with the Syrian Islamist group, the Nusra Front, to form the single Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (the Levant).
The Nusra Front - which had gained a reputation for discipline and honesty - rejected the merger though not its allegiance to al-Qaeda.
The leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has urged its fighters to strive for an Islamic state in Syria.
The spread of Sharia in rebel-held areas has alarmed the moderate members of the opposition, who, though Muslim, do not want a religious state.

Pakistan Taliban 'sets up a base in Syria'
By Ahmed Wali Mujeeb
BBC Urdu
The Pakistani Taliban have visited Syria to set up a base and to assess "the needs of the jihad", a Taliban official has told the BBC.
He said that the base was set up with the assistance of ex-Afghan fighters of Middle Eastern origin who have moved to Syria in recent years.
At least 12 experts in warfare and information technology had gone to Syria in the last two months, he said.
Their presence in the country is likely to have a sectarian motive.
Taliban factions feel that Sunni Muslims, who constitute a majority in Syria, are being oppressed by Syria's predominantly Shia rulers.
Thousands of people have died in the year-long armed conflict in Syria between loyalists of the ruling Baath Party and those who want to overthrow it.
The Pakistani government has not commented on the allegations.
'Joint operations'
Mohammad Amin, a senior Taliban operative and "co-ordinator of the Syrian base", told the BBC that the cell to monitor "the jihad" in Syria was set up six months ago.
He said that the cell has the approval of militant factions both within and outside of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella organisation of militant groups fighting the Pakistani forces.
The cell sends "information and feedback" on the conflict in Syria back to Pakistan, he said,
"They were facilitated by our friends in Syria who have previously been fighting in Afghanistan," Mr Amin said.
Their job is to "assess the needs of the Jihad in Syria, and to work out joint operations with our Syrian friends".
"There are dozens of Pakistani hopefuls in line to join the fighting against the Syrian army, but the advice we are getting at the moment is that here's already enough manpower in Syria."
In the past, militant fighters from Pakistan have often gone to fight in Central Asia and the Balkans.
In the 1990s, militant group Harkatul Mujahideen, was known to have sent a large number of men to fight in the Bosnian civil war of 1992-95.
Many Afghan and Pakistani fighters also fought on the side of Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict of 1988-94.
A number of Taliban groups in Pakistan have sectarian leanings, and resent the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad - having a Shia background - over Sunni Muslims who constitute about three-quarters of the Syrian population.
Sources say that anti-Shia groups in Pakistan have access to considerable charity funds raised in some Middle Eastern sheikhdoms that see their domestic Shia populations as a problem.

[MetalDog]

I didn't know there was a such thing as, "moderate Muslims."  I certainly didn't think that they would want to form a non-religious state.

[Boggit]

Less and less confident that arming the rebels is the right thing long term.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23285245
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23283079

You're right it's a dumb idea. It's typical of political knee jerk reaction to the situation outside of the control of Western governments. The politicians just haven't thought this one through. Angela Merkel seems to have the best idea - stay well away from it.