כתבה מעניינת של אל-מנאר על ארגון סורי לא מוכר יחסית, ה Popular Front for the Liberation of Iskenderun (PFLI), שחרט על דגלו את שחרור חבל איסקנדרון מידי הטורקים, המחזיקים בו מאז 1938. בינתיים עד לשחרור המיוחל, עוסקים החברה בלחימה ברחבי המולדת לצד כוחות הממשלה.

PFLI fighters are not paid salaries which sets them far apart financially from many Gulf backed, and sometimes Western trained, militia who can garner monthly salary payments of between $ 500-1,000. By contrast, pro-government popular committees numbering approximately 5,000 and National Defense units which number approximately 25,000 fighters, receive approximately 20,000 Syrian Pounds or $ 126 each month. Footing much of this bill are Syrian businessmen such as Rami Mahlouf, cousin of President Bashar Assad. Regular Syrian army recruits get only 3000 Syrian Pound or about $20 monthly but they also receive food and lodging and health and travel benefits. Syrian army reservists are said to receive approximately $ 10.50 per month.

וההסבר המשכנע ליכולות הלחימה של א-נוסרא ו ISIL/ISIS

At dawn each day, jihadists take drugs, including sometimes, large doses of Captagon and other widely available drugs among militia including but not limited to some potent drugs locally known as “Baltcon”, “Afoun”,”Zolm”, Opium, Heroin, Cocaine, Hashish. The main drug routes into the Syrian battle zones I was advised run from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Lebanon and lesser amounts form Turkey, Iraq and Jordan. Lebanon’s Bekaa valley apparently produces large amounts of Captagon pills for shipment to the Gulf and now to Syria. Jihadists high on drugs apparently feel invincible and hostile and do not fear death. Many are indeed ferocious and fearless fighters during the day, as many media sources have reported. But by nightfall, when the drug wears off the fighters become exhausted and sometimes they are found asleep on the spot they were fighting from. “Ali” explained that “Many of the “Gulfies” are in fact heavily addicted to strong heroin like drugs and they crave them and sometimes they even fight with their fellow militiamen to get their ‘fixes.’ We are told by some we capture that sometimes when one of their comrades is killed some of the fallen fighters “friends” will descend on his body, not particularly to pray over it but to rummage his pockets his drugs.

ועוד

As some media outlets have reported “AL Nusra Front and ISIS being some of the more extreme “imported jihadists” as some here call them, claim to be better fighters than Hezbollah, whose units set the fighting-skill bar fairly high these days. Some also claim that they have not really started their battle to defeat Hezbollah on its own territory but will do so when they are ready and that they have no doubt they will defeat Hezbollah. But as one PFLI fighter explained, and some of his buddies nodded agreement, only when high on drugs do Qatari/Saudi jihadist’s exhibit bravery and bravado and pose a serious threat because they ignore normal defensive fighting tactics. “We know many of these guys quite well lots of them were never even religious. They are many who are drug addicts who get high and lose their fear of dying. So they are dangerous to confront and they often use strange tactics.”