What will the US, UK and French support of al-Qaeda militants in Syria entail?

My choice:

(1) It will empower and embolden the al-Qaeda terror network.

Looking forward to the next war?

What has bothered me are the constant reports from BBC, NPR, and other media that they have no way to confirm reports coming from the rebels/FSA. Some insurgent videos have been shown to be fake. The critiques of U.S. media as depending on non-Arabic speaking journalists in the area are also troubling.

In short, another disaster in the making with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States - our good allies - financing extremists.

Obama's order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence "finding," broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad.

This and other developments signal a shift toward growing, albeit still circumscribed, support for Assad's armed opponents - a shift that intensified following last month's failure of the U.N. Security Council to agree on tougher sanctions against the Damascus government.

The White House is for now apparently stopping short of giving the rebels lethal weapons, even as some U.S. allies do just that. /snip

There's quite a bit more information at the link

If Saudi Arabia is involved, expect extremists to be among the rebels. Does President Obama think that these jihadists/terrorists will be easy to control?

From the article:

Last week, Reuters reported that, along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Turkey had established a secret base near the Syrian border to help direct vital military and communications support to Assad's opponents.

This "nerve center" is in Adana, a city in southern Turkey about 60 miles from the Syrian border, which is also home to Incirlik, a U.S. air base where U.S. military and intelligence agencies maintain a substantial presence...

European government sources said wealthy families in Saudi Arabia and Qatar were providing significant financing to the rebels. Senior officials of the Saudi and Qatari governments have publicly called for Assad's departure...

Current and former U.S. and European officials previously said that weapons supplies, which were being organized and financed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, were largely limited to guns and a limited number of anti-tank weapons, such as bazookas.

"Last week, the U.S. Treasury Department approved a license allowing the Washington Syrian Support Group to provide direct financial assistance to the Free Syrian Army. The Washington-based representative of the Free Syrian Army is allowed to conduct financial transactions on the rebel group's behalf but is not allowed to send military equipment."

OHHHHHH Naughty Naughty!

ALEPPO, Syria and BEIRUT, Lebanon -- As evidence mounts that foreign Islamists are fighting alongside Syria's increasingly radicalized rebels, Christians in Aleppo and elsewhere are taking up arms, often supplied by the regime.

"We saw what happened to the Christians in Iraq," Abu George, a Christian resident of Aleppo's Aziza district told GlobalPost. "What is going on in Aleppo is not a popular revolution for democracy and freedom. The fighters of the so-called Free Syrian Army are radical Sunnis who want to establish an Islamic state." ...

The plight of Christians in Iraq has long worried Syria's estimated two million Christians, around 10 percent of the population. The nightmare of similar persecution has led them to support the secular regime of President Bashar al-Assad, which presents itself as a defender of minorities.

With Syria now gripped by civil war and the Assad regime fighting for its survival, however, Christians like Abu George fear retribution, already occuring in some parts of the country, from the Sunni-led rebels they refused to back.

In Qseir, a town of some 60,000 people southwest of Homs, which has been under siege by regime forces for at least seven months, mosques recently rang out with the call for all Christians, who numbered around 10,000, to leave.

The breakdown of inter-communal relations in Qseir stems from both rising fundamentalism among Sunni fighters and the widespread belief that Christians had been collaborating with the Assad regime.