[Kerry] said Assad has “purposefully” facilitated the rise of extremism to present himself as a Western ally against radicals.

“He’s been doing this for months — trying to make himself the protector of Syria against extremists, when he himself has even been funding some of those extremists,” Kerry said. He accused Assad of “purposefully ceding some territory to them in order to make them more of a problem so he can make the argument that he is somehow the protector.”

What extremists is Kerry talking about? It is not Hizbullah, which has support from the Syrian government, that is killing civilians and cutting off heads but the "western" supported Takfiris. Those were certainly not created by Assad. They created themselves, through money from outside Syria, and did so even before the first protest in Syria started in March 2011:

In another town in northern Idlib, another jihadist — belonging to a different group — shared Ibrahim’s goal of an Islamic state. “Abu Zayd” is a 25-year-old Shari’a graduate who heads one of the founding brigades of Ahrar al-Sham, a group that adheres to the conservative Salafi interpretation of Sunni Islam.

...

The Ahrar started working on forming brigades “after the Egyptian revolution,” Abu Zayd said, well before March 15, 2011, when the Syrian revolution kicked off with protests in the southern agricultural city of Dara’a.

The leader of Ahrar al Shams has now claimed himself to be part of Al-Qaeda:

A top official of a major Syrian rebel group acknowledged Friday that he considers himself a member of al Qaida, an admission that undercuts Western hopes that the new Islamic Front would prove to be an acceptable counter to the rising influence of other al Qaida affiliates in Syria.

Abu Khaled al Suri, who is a top figure in the rebel group Ahrar al Sham, made the statement in an Internet posting [...]

...

Ahrar al Sham is one of the most militarily effective groups fighting to topple the regime of President Bashar Assad and is one of the largest groups aligned with the Islamic Front, a coalition of rebel groups that announced its formation in September as a counter to the U.S.-backed Supreme Military Council. Ahrar al Sham’s leader, Hassan Aboud, is the political chief of the Islamic Front.

These al-Qaeda affiliated groups, ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al Sham, all existed before the "revolution" in Syria started and they were all preparing to fight the Syrian government. Does Kerry believe that the Syrian president Assad created these even before the U.S. instigated campaign against him began? When the U.S. military withdrew from Vietnam and now from Afghanistan is it also "purposefully ceding some territory" so it can make the argument that it is "somehow the protector"? What utter nonsense.

After talks with the U.S. the Islamic Front, led by self acknowledged al-Qaeda affiliate Ahrar al Sham, has together with other groups now reportedly agreed to talks with the Syrian government in Geneva. There Kerry is the one representing the anti-Assad side. Who then is really cooperating with al-Qaeda?

http://www.moonofalabama.org

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37408.htm