It strains credulity to believe that Assad is pulling the strings of the most effective rebels against his rule:
"[Syria's opposition National Coalition] believes that ISIL is closely linked to the terrorist regime and serves the interests of the clique of President Bashar al-Assad, directly or indirectly," it said in a statement.
"The murder of Syrians by this group leaves no doubt about the intentions behind their creation, their objectives and the agendas they serve, which is confirmed by the nature of their terrorist actions hostile to the Syrian revolution," it added.
Sure, Assad uses the prominent role of the jihadis to discredit the rebellion. Indeed, Assad exaggerates the strength of the jihadis as a part of the rebellion to do that.
But it is too much to believe that Assad pulls the strings of the most effective fighters (because of their eagerness to die in the struggle, which has also allowed them to receive or take weapons at the expense of less fanatical rebels).
At the same time, it is not crazy to think that Assad pulls the strings of some jihadi rebels to create atrocities to discredit the rebels. After all, Assad spent many years cultivating supply lines of Sunni jihadis to funnel into Iraq to fight us after the 2003 invasion. Some Sunni jihadis will be willing to work for Assad, as they did in the past. And some won't examine who is providing key support to closely to commit atrocities that they think are the only Islamic actions in the war.
Civil wars are complicated with conflicting loyalties. For the most part, Assad is making lemonade out of the lemons of having inspired Sunni jihadis to come to Syria to fight him, where they naturally commit atrocities as jihadis are wont to do.
But it is also likely that a regime with ruthless intelligence services will lend a hand where they can to make sure jihadis commit atrocities when and where it is useful.
But if the National Coalition can sway more rebels to join them rather than the "tools" of the regime in the al Qaeda groups, that's useful. Sometimes you can't admit you understand the nuance.
