A Moderate French Salafist in a Syrian Prison

A long-time French resident, a self-identified “moderate Salafist” who was born in Syria, returned to his native country to join the rebellion against the Assad regime. Before he could return home to France via Turkey, however, he was arrested by the Syrian authorities and now languishes in jail, awaiting trial.

According to AFP:

Djamel Amer al-Khedoud, a 50-year-old grandfather moved by television images of Syria’s violent conflict, left Marseille in France to join rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

But after arriving in Syria’s neighbour Turkey, a stroke of bad luck landed him in a Damascus jail instead.

Many thanks to Bear for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

The rest of the AFP article is here.

Transcript:

00:00   I have met
00:04   that Muslims yes
00:08   that he came and gave a few …
00:12   pennies to refugees…
00:28   I am Muslim
00:32   I am a moderate Salafist
00:37   I am like everybody else, I watch TV and so…
00:41   I was watching Desira and …
00:45   and what was happening …
00:49   for my brothers …
00:53   in Syria, and also the children of Syria
00:57   especially for the children of Syria that were hurting…
01:01   So I cried I cried I found that insufficient …
01:05   I took my courage in my hand and …
01:10   and decided to do something for them. Since I…
01:14   I did not see on TV uselessly …
01:18   I had to give away my soul and leave the group
01:22   to attempt to reach Turkey. (in hope to return?)
01:26   Yes and that is where I got arrested. Yes.
01:30   I was arrested…
01:34   and then taken to prison

3 thoughts on “A Moderate French Salafist in a Syrian Prison

  1. I wonder what would have happened to him if things were reversed? If he were a loyalist to the evil regime and captured by those nice Jihadi rebels?
    I’ll bet he wouldn’t even have a head right now. No sympathy here.

    When I look at how Turkey is behaving, I have to hope the very distasteful and anti-Israeli Assad regime holds out, because in the long term the rebels will be even worse for both Israel and the West.
    The true Machiavellian strategy would be to keep them fighting as long as possible with as much destruction and casualties on both sides as possible.

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