B. V. DOLGOV Candidate of Historical Sciences Center for Arab and Islamic Studies IV RAS Keywords: Syrian crisis, patriotic opposition, armed Islamist opposition, Western goals, information war, political solution According to the Syrian authorities, there are more than one thousand armed anti-government groups operating on the territory of Syria, each of which has a number of fighters ranging from a few to several thousand. FROM ARMED GROUPS TO ISIS The total number of militants is difficult to determine. According to various sources, the approximate number of them is 70-80 thousand. Their most significant forces are represented by Islamist groups-Jabhat al-Nusra (Victory Front), Jaish al-Fatah (Victory Army), Ahrar al-Sham (Liberators of Syria), Junud al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam), Firaq Allah (Brigades of Allah), Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam), Jabhat al-Sham (Syrian Front), At-Talia al-muqatila"(Fighting Vanguard) - the military wing of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood; groups associated with Al-Qaeda. And also - "Al-Jaish al-Hurr al-suriy" (Free Syrian Army-CCA). The FSA is considered the least "Islamized" group, led by an officer who defected from the Syrian government army. Since 2014, ISIL ("Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" - ad-Dawla al-Islamiyya fi Iraq wa-sh-Sham, Arabic) has been actively expanding its terrorist activities in parts of Syria and Iraq. ISIL emerged in 2006 during the occupation of Iraq by the US and its allies. At that time, this Sunni Islamist group was fighting both the occupying forces and the Shiite Iraqi community, on whose representatives the United States relied in its policy in Iraq at that time. However, the main goal of ISIL was to create an "Islamic State" (IS) in Iraq and neighboring countries. This slogan is proclaimed in the very name of the group - "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant "(Levant is the Latin translation of the Arabic term al-Sham, which is used in the name of ISIL and means the region that includes modern Sy ... Читать далее