Al Qaeda Taking Deadly New Role in Syria’s Conflict (Published 2012)

CAIRO — It is the sort of image that has become a staple of the Syrian revolution, a video of masked men calling themselves the Free Syrian Army and brandishing AK-47s — with one unsettling difference. In the background hang two flags of Al Qaeda, white Arabic writing on a black field. “We are now forming suicide cells to make jihad in the name of God,” said a speaker in the video using the classi