Australia will be one of the countries responsible for an extended bloodbath in Syria, after Foreign Minister Bob Carr took Barack Obama’s lead, and announced that Australia now recognises the al-Qaeda-linked Syrian National Coalition as the legitimate representatives of Syria.

The Obama administration made a big show on 11 December of blacklisting the Jabhat al-Nusra front in Syria as a terrorist group, calling it an “alias” for the group known as al-Qaeda in Iraq. However, the very next day that blacklisting was shown to be merely cosmetic, when Obama conferred official recognition on the Syrian National Coalition which is closely linked to the al-Nusra front. Bob Carr followed suit immediately.

AFP reported 12 December that the Syrian National Coalition doesn’t hide its al-Qaeda connections: its leader, Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib urged the U.S. at a meeting that day in Morocco of the Friends of Syria group, to review the blacklisting of al-Nusra. “The decision to blacklist one of the groups fighting the regime as a terrorist organisation must be re-examined,” he said. “We can have ideological and political differences with certain parties, but the revolutionaries all share the same goal: to overthrow the criminal regime” of President Bashar al-Assad.

London’s Telegraph newspaper reported 10 December that 29 Syrian opposition groups have signed a petition is support of Jabhat al-Nusra, which urges supporters to “raise the Jabhat al-Nusra flag”—the flag of al-Qaeda—as a “thank-you”.

Jabhat al-Nusra is the dominant anti-Assad fighting force in Syria, comprised of jihadis who gained combat experience killing occupation forces, thousands of Shiites and Christians, and even fellow Sunnis in the post-Saddam Iraq insurgency, and who have now crossed the border into Syria, many going via Libya on the way. All along, they have been funded by the British-allied Saudi Royal family and Qatar. (Click here for more—PDF)

The Telegraph reported, “Jabhat al-Nusra made its mark early this year with a string of suicide bombings, a tactic it continues to use. Aided by fighters from abroad and Syrians who have returned from other wars in the Middle East, it has also led battles for a number of military bases, and secured a string of recent victories… Although Jabhat al-Nusra remains separate from the Free Syrian Army, many FAS leaders now recognise its strength and order their forces to cooperate with it.”

The Russian government and many other experts warn that if the Assad regime falls, far from ending conflict, the heavy presence of al-Qaeda elements in Syria guarantees a protracted period of bloody conflict similar to the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. The recognition of the SNC opens the way for the British and Obama and their allies to openly arm the Syrian insurgency, arms which will also go to the very al-Qaeda network against which 39 Australians have died fighting in Afghanistan.

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