However, "moderate" rebels are a rare species in Syrian insurgency. Entering its fourth year now, the war on Syria has created a highly polarized war zone that has left no room for any moderates. Combatants are fighting now to death in a battle of life or death.
The fighting lines are strictly drawn between homeland defence and foreign intervention, between national forces and international terrorists and between an existing secular and civil state and a future state perceived to be governed by an extremist or, at the best, a moderate version of Islamist ideology supported by the most backward, tribal and undemocratic regional states with similar sectarian ideologies.
During his testimony at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on last September 3, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry denied that the "moderate" Syrian rebels are infiltrated by the al-Qaeda terrorists as "basically not true."
The Syrian "opposition has increasingly become more defined by its moderation, more defined by the breadth of its membership, and more defined by its adherence to some, you know, democratic process and to an all-inclusive, minority protecting constitution, which will be broad-based and secular with respect to the future of Syria," Kerry testified.
However, hard facts on the ground in Syria as well as statements by other U.S. high ranking officials challenge Kerry's testimony as a politically motivated, far from truth and misleading statement.
Last March, General David Rodriguez, head of the U.S. Africa Command, testified before the House Armed Services Committee that "Syria has become a significant location for al-Qaeda-aligned groups to recruit, train, and equip extremists."
The previous month, James Clapper, the U.S. director of national intelligence, called Syria a "huge magnet" for Islamic extremists in testimony prepared for the Senate intelligence committee.
Last January, Clapper also told a Senate intelligence hearing that "training complexes" for foreign fighters were spotted in Syria and chair of the Senate intelligence committee Dianne Feinstein described Syria as "the most notable new security threat in the year" since the committee's last meeting.
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