the islamic and non-islamic populations they lord over. they charge fines, civil penalties. what do they do with the money? dispatch sleeper agents into nonisis held territory, equipped with $300,000. they say, find your own battalion, or infiltrate an existing one, and with all that wealth, you can sort of creep your way to the top, and before long, you ll be the top commander, the brigade command e and whether they realize it, you manipulate them and steer them in our direction. that s how they took over a third of syria. raising questions about what it means for the u.s. and others who want to support different factions, who exactly are they supporting. do they really know who they are supporting? michael weiss, a fascinating article, in the daily beast, michael, thank you. sure, my pleasure. just ahead, the biggest challenge in the battle against
and that this was a president who, despite the fact that he s criticizing the west and washington in particular, for carrying out attacks using chemical weapons, russia stands squarely behind him. i think that s the message that the kremlin wants to put across. if there are negotiations in the future about syria, then assad is the kremlin s man. that dep low mattic support the being shadowed by military support on the the ground with the russian air strikes now in their third week, striking hard at opposition fighters inside syria, including islamic state and other nonisis rebels as well. the russians playing a tough, hard-nosed game. you don t buy this chilly reception stuff? these are two men standing together to try to defeat assad s enemies?
coming out of syria and we speak to rebel commanders inside, it s focussed, the russian effort, on nonisis anti-regime rebels, and it was well understood that when this campaign, this russian air campaign began, that really, the point was to rescue the asaad regime, which certainly going back to the early spring, was losing critical areas to the rebels, rebels who are anti-isis in this instance. now, these russian air strikes have been going on now for nine days, and as we ve heard from u.s. officials, 90% of them seemg to be focussed on nonisis targets. and, of course, after nine days, it s clear that the next step is what we re seeing now, a ground offensive. syrian rebels fire a u.s. made anti-tank missile hitting a syrian army troop carrier.
what is his end game there? well, a couple end games. one he s trying to distract from ukraine and get the world not to focus on what s happening there, particularly with the end of the cease-fire and all those things. also makes him popular in russia to show he s a global leader. the bigger issue, he will specific continue to argueate non-isis rebels. especially the ones america has backed. once he can destroy all the non-isis rebels, then the argument to the world will be, look, the only people left in syria is either isis or assad. you might as well be on assad s side. so he wants to eliminate any nonisis alternative to assad so you re going to see him continue to specifically target american-backed rebels. the president said on friday in an extraordinary press conference when asked, that if russia is attacking and doing these things out of weakness he s wrong. it s not out of weakness. he s doing it because he senses a vacuum and he can position himself as a geopolite qual eq
right. after six years the obama doctrine is firmly in place. what we re seeing in syria and crimea is a failure of obama policy. the obama doctrine has failed. that s led to perceived weakness. they were willing to do things that were unthinkable a few years ago. listen to marco rubio with his thoughts on the direction that putin is heading in syria. he will specifically continue to target non-isis rebels especially the ones america has backed. the point is once he can destroy the nonisis rebels then the argument will be the only people left in isis or assad. he wants to eliminate any non-isis alternative. you will see him specifically target american backed rebels. do you agree with that senator? it s hard to argue when you have 19 air strikes we have looked at.