Things can change on the ground:
Syrian rebel factions battled fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) across north-west Syria on Saturday in the heaviest clashes between President Bashar al-Assad's opponents in nearly three years of conflict, activists said.
The apparently coordinated strikes against the ISIL come after months of increasing resentment of the powerful al Qaeda-linked group, whose radical foreign jihadis and have alienated many ordinary Syrians in rebel-held territory.
Activists said dozens of fighters were killed in the clashes between rival rebel groups which have raged since Friday in Aleppo and Idlib provinces, close to the border with Turkey.
This is good. It would be nice if the northern rebels weren't displaced by jihadis.
I wonder if there was outside help to coordinate these attacks?
And I wonder if arms were sent to help with the attacks?
And I wonder if the non-jihadi rebels can start peeling away rebels who joined the jihadis because they were effective anti-Assad outfits? At some point, the non-jihadis should be able to effectively make the argument that the jihadis are a convenient enemy for Assad who make it possible for Assad to portray his fight to keep his minority dictatorship going a fight against jihadis.
After all, if the jihadis can take time from the fight against Assad to fight other rebels, the non-jihadis can return the favor.
It would be nice if we could help these guys who want to fight Assad and who want to defeat the jihadis, too.
