After more than two years of obfuscating the obvious the New York Times finally decided to write something truthful about the Syrian insurgency:
Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of.
…
The Islamist character of the opposition reflects the main constituency of the rebellion, which has been led since its start by Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority, mostly in conservative, marginalized areas.
From the very start in Daraa the violent protests started at mosques. In late March 2011 a weapon cache was found inside the Omari mosque in Daraa. All of the "battalions" founded by the various insurgent groups were named after venerated Sunni figures or themes. It was therefore absolutely clear that this was a sectarian insurgency, with foreign support, from the very beginning.
The U.S., as the NYT, so far promoted this sectarian monster as some kind of civil rights movement. As the NYT now removed that mask (likely due to some White House proding), how long will it take until it helps to kill it off?
(Media note: Today's A1 NYT piece is the first written for the paper by Ben Hubbard. Hubbard, an Arabic speaker, earlier reported for the Associated Press. So far most NYT pieces on Syria were written by Anna Barnard from Beirut. Barnard speaks Russian but no Arabic and her news often comes straight out of the sectarian Sunni Hariri press office. One hopes that Hubbard will get more space for reality based reporting on Syria.)