I have not paid close attention to the Syria situation for several months...
Last I looked, the 'Rebels' were fragmented into three of four diverse focal-points...
Only one of which was affiliated with al-Qaeda in some form or another...
During my several-month-long 'inattention' on Syria, I heard, or formed, the soft-and-fuzzy impression that the 'Rebel' side had consolidated, or, at least, that the US had identified one Rebel Faction with which to do business...
And yet in a thread like this, I'm 'hearing' that the Rebels are all al-Qaeda types, after all...
Which seems to fly in the face of my older (and admittedly fuzzier) understanding of the range of Rebel Factions...
Can we safely give arms to one or more Rebel Factions with a reasonable assurance that they will not fall into the hands of al-Qaeda types later?
Are my old understandings about factions wrong or outdated?
Is there anyone here who can shed light on the nature of these Factions, as a brief summary?