LATEST: CIA Director — Syrian Insurgents Recruited by Al Qa’eda and Can Launch Attacks on US

WEDNESDAY FEATURES

Insurgents took territory and regime positions in the Latakia offensive in western Syria on Tuesday, reaching the Mediterranean for the first time in the three-year conflict.

The arrival on the beach of fighters from Ansar as-Sham was mainly symbolic, but other gains on the 5th day of the offensive had military significance. Opposition fighters moved beyond their initial victory in Kassab on the Turkish border to claim as-Samra on the road to the southwest. Near Kassab, they captured the key “Tower 45”, killing the commander of the regime defenders.

Rocket attacks continued on other regime targets in Latakia Province, considered a base of support for President Assad.

The offensive includes leading groups of the Islamic Front such as Ansar as-Sham and Ahrar al-Sham, the Islamic faction Jabhat al-Nusra, and the foreign fighters of Jundu Sham, led by the Chechen Muslim Abu Walid Shishani.

A report from an Armenian farmer, via the BBC World Service, on the capture of Kassab:

Muslim Abu Walid Shishani and Ahrar al-Sham commander Abu al-Hassan after the capture of Tower 45:

Footage of Muslim Abu Walid Shishani, second-in-command Abu Tarib Shishani, and other fighters:

State news agency SANA does not acknowledge the loss of Tower 45, claiming instead that Assad force “continue to valiantly confront terrorist groups’ repeated attempts to infiltrate” the post and that they “tightened full control over the area surrounding” it.

The site also does not admit the insurgent takeover of Kassab, preferring a claim by the Health Minister that “two nurses and an ambulance driver were wounded Tuesday while performing their humanitarian medical duties to rescue citizens’ lives”.

SANA continues to attack Turkey over the offensive, saying the “terrorists” are “supported by (Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip) Erdogan’s government to ensure their infiltration into Syria”.

Pro-regime Al-Watan insisted that the Syrian army had “killed more than 500 terrorists“, most of them Saudi or Chechen, since the start of the insurgent offensive. It denied that insurgents had taken control of strategic areas, including the Kasab border crossing.

Regime bombing of insurgent-held Salma in Latakia Province:

CIA Director: Syrian Insurgents Recruited by Al Qaeda and Can Launch Attacks on US

The director of the CIA, John Brennan, has told a Congressional panel that dozens of seasoned militant fighters, including some midlevel planners, have traveled to Syria from Pakistan in recent months to lay the foundation for future strikes against Europe and the US.

“We are concerned about the use of Syrian territory by the Al Qa’eda organization to recruit individuals and develop the capability to be able not just to carry out attacks inside of Syria, but also to use Syria as a launching pad,” Brennan said.

The director claimed he had information information from electronic intercepts, informers, and social media posts that Al Qaeda’s senior leadership in Pakistan, including its head Ayman al-Zawahiri, were developing a long-term plan to create specific cells in Syria to identify, recruit and train Western fighters.

Senior officials claimed the Islamist faction Jabhat al-Nusra was leading the effort in northwestern and eastern Syria. Two of them said there are perhaps “a few dozen” Qaeda veterans of fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan involved in the Syrian conflict.

Matthew G. Olsen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told legislators:

What we’ve seen is a coalescence in Syria of Al Qaeda veterans from Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as extremists from other hot spots such as Libya and Iraq. From a terrorism perspective, the most concerning development is that Al Qaeda has declared Syria its most critical front.

The officials claimed that Abu Khaled al-Suri, a leading member of the insurgent faction Ahrar al-Sham killed in February by the Islamic State of Iraq and as-Sham, was trying to organize the cells to launch attacks against the West.

Abu Khaled was asked by Al Qa’eda leader al-Zawahiri last spring to mediate a conflict between ISIS and the Islamist faction Jabhat al-Nusra.

See How “Al Qa’eda Mediator” Al-Suri Died – A Jihadist’s Account