Nusra itself has been able to seize land along the bank of the Yarmuk River not far from the Syrian-Jordanian-Israel border intersection, creating another obstacle. The alarm in the Israeli and Jordanian high commands over Al Qaeda’s looming encroachments is shared by Saudi Arabia, whose intelligence services now estimate that Al Qaeda and its multiple branches have massed some 6,000 fighting activists in Syria – 12 percent of them Saudi nationals. Since more are pouring into the country all the time, intelligence experts in Riyadh calculate that the current number will double itself in the next six months. And that will not be the end: the 12,000 jihadists concentrated in Syria by next spring may have multiplied to 15-18,000 by the winter of 2014. Most of them are streaming in from across the Muslim world including the Russian Caucasian. Saudi Intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who is in charge of the Saudi effort in Syria, has warned that Riyadh cannot afford to have al Qaeda hanging massively over its front, back and side doors – in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Egyptian Sinai, and threatening to overrun Lebanon and Jordan. A jihadi victory in Syria would boost al Qaeda in Iraq on its northern border. Israel is in the same position.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 01:15:16 +0000
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