Any takers for "Ambassador to Syria"?
(The West Point report on the Libyan CIA mercenaries who constitute "al-Qaeda in Iraq", and now AQ Syria, here.
Washington: The Central Intelligence Agency is ramping up support to elite Iraqi anti-terrorism units (ie. Death Squads -AI) to better fight Al Qaida affiliates, amid alarm in Washington about spillover from the civil war in neighbouring Syria, according to US officials.
The stepped-up mission expands a covert US presence on the edges of the two-year-old Syrian conflict, at a time of American concerns about the growing power of extremists in the Syrian rebellion.
Al Qaida in Iraq, the terrorist network’s affiliate in the country, has close ties to Syria-based Jabhat Al Nusra, also known as the Al Nusra Front, an opposition militant group that has attacked government installations and controls territory in northern Syria. The US State Department placed Al Nusra on its list of foreign terror organisations in December, calling the group an alias for Al Qaida in Iraq. [In Full]