Syria: Wolves of the Valley

This VICE video was posted on April 25.

Matthew Barber writing at SyriaComment:
....In the video,  one of the leading SRF fighters gives “a message” to Muslims in the West emphasizing that they do not want new fighters to join them in Syria. He says they have enough men and don’t need more. They do discuss their need for weapons, however, and the video gives an interesting look at equipment and training materials provided to the fighters by the U.S. One of the men describes participating in a weapons training program in Turkey and Qatar. After completing the training, the men return to Syria and receive shipments of weapons. Only those who participate in the training receive weapons, the fighter claims, and he says that the weapons are for “fighting Da’ash” rather that for fighting the regime.

The tactics of ISIS are renounced as un-Islamic by the SRF fighter speaking to Roussinos. He attacks such practices as decapitation and extracting jizya from Christians.

Along with this effort to self-market as “moderate” comes the practice of denigrating ISIS (who, as everyone knows, represents the very antithesis of “moderate”), and amusingly, the commander does denigrate them… as Shiites “who have nothing to do with Islam.” There’s something inherently ironic about leveling the accusation of “Shiism” against al-Qaida groups: first, no one has targeted Shiites with more violence than al-Qaida, and second, one of the defining features of al-Qaida’s immoral character is the intolerance that typifies their ideology. The problem isn’t that they’re “this” or “that,” but that they’re willing to kill those who are “this” or “that.” So judging them because they are “Shiites”—beyond the categorical inaccuracy—seems to betray the fact that even the rebel enemies of ISIS are more influenced than they’d like to admit by the intolerant outlook of al-Qaida itself.

At one point in the film, Roussinos visits a number of prisoners being held by the SRF, among whom are captured ISIS members. They require the men to view a video of a recent mass execution of civilians performed by ISIS and then ask the prisoners if this behavior is Islamic. One of the ..........