To understand what the terrorist factions controlling large parts of Syria actually stand for, you only need to look at the propaganda posters they are now plastering across the cities under their grip.
Their chosen “heroes” — Turkey’s Islamist strongman Erdogan, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and their own jihadist commander Ahmad al-Shar’a (al-Jolani) — are displayed side by side as icons of the ideology they wish to impose.
These posters are not decoration. They are confession.
Saddam Hussein spent decades backing radical Islamist movements across the region, including al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and every network working to destabilize the secular Syrian state under Hafez al-Assad. He funded and armed the same extremist factions whose offshoots now rule nearly two-thirds of Syria. That is why today’s armed groups idolize him — and why he remains a celebrated figure among Gazans and in Judea and Samaria.
