Syria cease-fire strengthens al-Qaida branch

BEIRUT — Al-Qaida’s branch in Syria has recruited thousands of fighters, including teenagers, and taken territory from government forces in a successful offensive in the north, illustrating how the cease-fire put in place by Russia and the United States to weaken the militants has in many ways backfired.

The branch, known as the Nusra Front, has churned out a flood of videos — slickly produced in the style of its rival, the Islamic State group — that show off its recruitment drive. In one, young men line up for combat training. In another, an al-Qaida fighter in a mosque urges a crowd of men to join jihad.

Since March, the group has recruited 3,000 new fighters, in comparison to an average of 200 to 300 per month before, according to Rami Abdurrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group monitoring the conflict. Other activists said hundreds living in camps for displaced people in the north have joined the al-Qaida branch.

But battlefield success and the push for recruits have brought to the surface tensions within the Nusra Front over the group’s future path, observers say.

A hard-line faction wants to emulate the Islamic State group and declare a caliphate in the areas under its control, a step al-Qaida has long rejected because it does not want to alienate its allies in the Syrian opposition. A Syria-minded camp within the Nusra Front wants to focus entirely on the campaign to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad and to break ties with al-Qaida.

“There are leaders in Nusra who are saying we are strongest, why are we not ruling and why don’t we declare a caliphate?” said Radwan Mortada, an expert on jihadi groups who writes for Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar newspaper. “There are others who say the world will not leave us alone so long as we are related to al-Qaida. So the least we can do ... is declare our dissociation with al-Qaida.”

The Nusra Front has long been one of the strongest factions in Syria’s opposition. It and other rebels, including some al--

lied to it, hold most of the northwestern province of Idlib and parts of neighboring Aleppo province.

When Russia and the U.S. brokered a cease-fire between Assad and opposition forces in February, the Nusra Front and the Islamic State group were excluded. The hope in Washington and Moscow was that other rebel factions would shun both extremist groups.

Instead, the cease-fire faltered within weeks as Assad’s forces fought rebels around the opposition-held part of Aleppo, and peace talks in Geneva stalemated. That boosted the Nusra Front’s credibility as the force that kept up the fight against Assad and stood against any compromise leaving him in power.

Far from being shunned by other factions, the Nusra Front has attracted a coalition. The alliance, known as the Jaish al-Fatah, or Army of Conquest, recently waged a counteroffensive around Aleppo, retaking ground from Assad’s military and its allies and inflicting heavy casualties.

Maj. Jamil Saleh, commander of Tajammu elEzzah, a U.S.-backed rebel group, said the Nusra Front is gaining recruits in part because the international community has not pressed for Assad’s removal at the peace talks, discrediting moderate factions that agreed to the negotiations.

Because of the Nusra Front, Syria has become a critical hub for al-Qaida, which has sent prominent figures to aid the fight.

And the alliances that al-Qaida has built with other Syrian rebel factions have been key to its success. That’s in contrast to the Islamic State group, which considers as infidels anyone who does not accept its rule.

As a result, the Islamic State group has battled Syrian rebel factions — and the Nusra Front — more than it has battled Assad’s forces.