AP, Beirut
With Syria’s shaky cease-fire holding, peaceful protesters have yet again taken to the streets in opposition-held areas of the country. But this time, in addition to President Bashar Assad’s government, they have another despised authority they seek to topple — al-Qaida’s affiliate in the country, the oppressive Nusra Front.
The developments have raised questions as to whether the al-Qaida branch can be sidelined — or in fact even completely eradicated — from any future scenarios for Syria.
In the northwestern province of Idlib, protesters recently set fire to an office belonging to the Nusra Front after major fighting in the area saw the al-Qaida-linked militants crush a division of the U.S.-backed rebel Free Syrian Army, which has become popular with residents in the town of Maaret al-Numan and elsewhere across the province.
The nearly three-week truce — which excludes the Nusra Front and its rival, the Islamic State group, both designated by the United Nations as terrorist organizations — and the peace talks currently underway in Geneva between the Syrian government and Western-backed rebels have increased pressure on the Nusra Front.
According to Charles Lister, a Middle East Institute fellow who has written a book on jihadist dynamics in the Syria conflict, the truce “was a test of exactly how much” the Nusra Front would succeed in casting itself as a political force and a heavyweight in the conflict.
The Nusra Front, or Jabhat al-Nusra as it is known in Arabic, emerged in Syria in 2012, when the country’s civil war was already in full swing, quickly establishing itself as the local power in scores of towns and villages in the country’s north. But its battlefield strength waned in the face of the rival Islamic State group, which captured almost a third of Syria and neighboring Iraq when it blitzed across the region in the summer of 2014, and a myriad of other militant and rebel factions that took hold in the war-ravaged country.
In the town of Maaret al-Numan, the Nusra Front has resorted to force against residents on several occasions.
On March 4, Nusra Front members and supporters attacked a peaceful anti-government march, detaining several protesters. A week later, militants on motorbikes stormed another protest, beating up demonstrators and snatching away their three-color flags symbolizing the 2011 Syrian uprising against Assad.
Then, on Saturday, the militants swept through the town again, this time capturing and detaining fighters from the popular 13th Division of the rebel Free Syrian Army.