Jihadis were once Assad's ally against America in Iraq. That hasn't worked out in the end:
Syrian President Bashar Assad’s anti-U.S. strategy during the 2003-11 Iraq War has come back to bite him.
Mr. Assad allowed al Qaeda operatives to set up a “rat line” through his country and into northeastern Iraq. Hundreds of young terrorists, many recruited from North Africa, took airline flights into Damascus and joined networks ready to sneak them across the border.
Mr. Assad’s objective: to keep the U.S. occupation off balance by helping al Qaeda kill Americans.
But Mr. Assad’s move also enabled al Qaeda to set up a logistics foothold in Syria that now is being used against him.
Indeed. Five years ago, on the news of a car-bombing in Syria, I noted my suspicion that this could happen:
I've long thought that Syria's support for Sunni jihadis in Iraq is a risky move. The Alawites who rule Syria are a Shia-offshoot minority that keeps the Sunni Arab majority subjugated.
Syria funneled Sunni Arabs through Damascus and into Iraq to kill us and Iraqis. But that conveyor belt has been disrupted. Are jihadis who want to go to Iraq getting stuck in Syria with nothing to do with their jihadi anger?
The Sunni jihadis found something to do with their anger. Now we're taking real blowback, eh?
UPDATE: Thanks to Pseudo-Polymath for the link.
