The followers of Bin Laden enlisted to fight the Syrian Civil War Peter Hitchens described it as the West taking sides with one brand of Islam (Sunni) over the other brand (Shia).
When their efforts faltered then in came ISIS and Shamima Begum’s lawyers trying to get her UK citizenship back revealed that a Canadian intel operative in Turkey helped her and other teenage girls (underage) to get into Syria to join ISIS.
Who does Canadian intelligence work with in “Five Eyes”?
“The followers of Bin Laden enlisted to fight the Syrian Civil War Peter Hitchens described it as the West taking sides with one brand of Islam (Sunni) over the other brand (Shia).”
That’s Peter Hitchens take. The truth is more complex, and for the U.S. it had little to do with Sunni-Shia rivalry than a pathological desire to oust Assad, period. That Sunni-Shia rivalries entered into it was a consequence of U.S. actions, not an intent.
Did Sunni radicals (besides ISIS) from outside Syria “volunteer” to get involved against Assad. For sure and particularly again the “vetting” was outsourced to Middle East powers, like the Saudis and Turkey, which meant, again it became their agendas at play. Consequences. The U.S. belatedly saw what they had gotten into, and concentrated instead on their alliance with the Kurds - who were very significant in the later fights against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
I have often written how the U.S. pathology against Assad, and the long running covert bolstering of a strong “Syrian opposition” (begun by GWBush) was stupid in that it took a security situation - regarding Assad, that was stable and contained, and in massive error made Russia and the Mullahs in Tehran stronger in the Middle East than before, multiplying manyfold the risks that Assad had ever presented.
Blunders and consequences more than intentions.