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Foreign Fighters and Arms Pour into Syria
(Independent-UK) Kim Sengupta - Sadoun al-Husseini, 36, got his combat experience in Iraq, fighting first against American forces and then as a member of the "Anbar Awakening," when Sunni nationalists turned their guns against foreign fighters affiliated with al-Qaeda. He says his presence inside Syria, where an overwhelmingly Sunni uprising is taking place against Assad's Alawite-dominated establishment, is an expression of solidarity with oppressed brethren sharing a common heritage. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's successor as head of al-Qaeda, declared this month that it was the duty of all Muslims to take part in jihad in Syria. The organization's Iraqi arm was, according to some American officials, responsible for recent bombings in Damascus and Aleppo.