Why Do Syrians Eating American-Bought Food Think They're Being Fed by the Islamist Al-Nusra Front?

In this Friday, Jan. 11, 2013 file citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News Network, and authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows rebels from al-Qaida affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra sit on a truck full of ammunition in northern Syria. (Photo: AP)

The United States government has donated roughly $385 million in humanitarian aid to Syria, but according to a recent report by Liz Sly at the Washington Post, many Syrians have no idea where the life-saving goods are coming from.  Disturbingly, many actually believe the designated terrorist group (and dominant power in many of the rebel-held areas) Jabhat al-Nusra is providing the food and medicine.

Why?  The main reason, it seems, is that the Obama administration and the aid workers distributing the goods have chosen to keep their actions a "secret" -- at least from the countless Syrians they help every day -- to protect the safety of the workers.

As a result, anti-American sentiment is on the rise and so is support for the Al-Nusra front, as it is referred to.

And if the Syrian government collapses -- and most agree it is only a matter of time -- this could lead to yet another Islamist-dominated government taking hold in the region.

In this Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2012, file photo, Syrian women wait outside a bakery shop to buy bread in Maaret Misreen, near Idlib, Syria. (Photo: AP)

The Washington Post writes (all subsequent emphasis added):

...as the death toll mounts and the regime led by President Bashar al-Assad shows no sign of giving up, anger about the perceived failure of the United States to help mounts steadily among Syrians who support the rebellion.

“America has done nothing for us. Nothing at all,” said Mohammed Fouad Waisi, 50, spitting out the words for emphasis in his small Aleppo grocery store, which adjoins a bakery where he buys bread every day. The bakery is fully supplied with flour paid for by the United States. But Waisi credited Jabhat al-Nusra — a rebel group the United States has designated a terrorist organization because of its ties to al-Qaeda — with providing flour to the region, though he admitted he wasn’t sure where it comes from.

“If America considers itself a friend of Syria, it should start to do something,” he said.

One aid worker reportedly said: "[Syrians] say they’re not getting any help, and it frustrates us because they are."

In fact, the Washington Post continues:

Flour purchased by the United States helps feed 210,000 people a day and has helped resolve the acute shortage of bread that threatened the province with famine last winter, aid workers said. Extra food rations have been distributed to more than 400,000 people, and 168,000 people sleep under U.S.-provided blankets, the aid workers said.

The United States also funds 144 field hospitals and clinics that treat injured Syrians across the country, and it provides 90 percent of all medical aid reaching rebel areas in one province where fighting has increased sharply in recent months, according to an official with the U.S. Agency for International Development who spoke on the condition of anonymity...

One of the men who distributes the bread says he knows it comes from the United States, but was told not to tell anyone.  In one town where American-bought food is distributed, Jabhat al-Nusra flags reportedly line the sides of the streets, implying people have them to thank.

Most people know that a foreign country is helping out somehow -- the Al-Nusra front alone doesn't have the resources to feed so many -- but they think Saudi Arabia or Qatar is lending a helping hand, not the United States.

“We really don’t know, and nobody asks,” one man said.

Click here to read the entire report from the Washington Post.