Months after the U.S. initiated military airstrikes in Syria with the stated goal of uprooting Islamic State (or ISIS) militants, new in-depth reporting from the ground in that country reveals that numerous forces once opposed to the group are now citing the U.S.-led bombing campaign as a reason to change their alliances and join the very fighters they once opposed.
According to a series of interviews with the Guardian‘s Mona Mahmood, members of the Free Syrian Army and other Islamic military groups that were previously engaged in a two-front battle against the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad on one side and ISIS on the other, are shifting their thinking, and their military alliances, based on the behavior of the U.S. military.
As Mahmood reports:
Some of those interviewed by Mahmood echoed critics of the U.S. strategy to bomb Syria by saying that the “it was inevitable” that U.S. airstrikes would in many ways bolster, not undermine, support for ISIS.
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