Shi'ite Hezbollah still supports the Assad family, from the minority
Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, which has maintained
authoritarian rule over Syria's Sunni majority for four decades but now
may have its back to the wall.
Leaders of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas turned publicly against their long-time ally President Bashar al-Assad of Syria on Friday, endorsing the revolt aimed at overthrowing his dynastic rule.
The policy shift deprives Assad of one of his few remaining Sunni
Muslim supporters in the Arab world and deepens his international
isolation. It was announced in Hamas speeches at Friday prayers in Cairo
and a rally in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas went public after nearly a year of equivocating as Assad's army,
largely led by fellow members of the president's Alawite sect, has
crushed mainly Sunni protesters and rebels.
In a Middle East split along sectarian lines between Shi'ite and Sunni
Islam, the public abandonment of Assad casts immediate questions over
Hamas's future ties with its principal backer Iran, which has stuck by its ally Assad, as well as with Iran's fellow Shi'ite allies in Lebanon's Hezbollah movement.
"I salute all the nations of the Arab Spring and I salute the heroic
people of Syria who are striving for freedom, democracy and reform,"
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, visiting Egypt from the Gaza Strip, told
thousands of Friday worshippers at Cairo's al-Azhar mosque. more
This is what the Arabs did during WWII with the Nazis. Most of them were allied with Hitler till it became clear he was a loser. Our CIA then covered all those Nazi henchmen up and gave them states.
