Talk:Liwaa al-Umma

What is the nature of Liwaa Al-Umma?

In this, I mean is there a specific ideology they follow? This will be important for informing readers of the nature of this article of the nature of the War, and its dominant factions, if that makes sense. --Lionheart Omega (talk) 03:12, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Ideology - I've not seen anything giving a clear ideology for the group, but this source[1] states that -

"Not all foreign fighters are jihadists, either. One Libyan-Irish fighter, Mahdi al-Harati, who helped lead the battle for Tripoli, Libya, organized a group of volunteers for Syria, noted Thomas Pierret, a lecturer in contemporary Syrian Islam at the University of Edinburgh. “He is not a jihadi; he sees himself as a Libyan revolutionary there to help the Syrian revolution,” Mr. Pierret said."

Therefore, assuming the groups ideology is along the same lines as its leader, their ideology is more one of Anti-authoritarianism and pro-Democracy as opposed to being jihadism.

Factions - Despite the claim that only 10% of the members are foreign, these foreign members seem to play an important role. The primary reason behind the formation of the brigade seems to be so that foreign sympathisers/fighters can bring advise and knowledge with them, that they can pass on to the syrian opposition.

As a result, the group would suggestably be dominated by a foreign minority, e.g. al-Harati himself. Libyan and Irish minorities are referred to in both these articles, so they're probably either a sizable or a pretty influential minority.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2012/0801/1224321232578.html

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/28/world/meast/syria-libya-fighters/index.html

Photos/Images - You can find the logo for the group here[2] - on their official facebook page[3]. I think the logo will qualify under fair usage under US law, just like how the Tripoli Brigade logo did, and can therefore be uploaded to wikimedia. I'm not particularly sure on the legalities on using their other facebook photos of them in Syria, but it's probably worth a try at the least.

I might add a couple to these things to the page now, but naturally I'd appreciate other opinions and interpretations of these articles. MrPenguin20 (talk) 14:27, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

This Al-Akhbar article put LAU into the jihadist groups that are fighting in Syria. Although it considers the group less extremist than others (for example, Al-Nusra Front), it is clearly defined as a jihadist paramilitary group: "Some foreign jihadi factions are less doctrinally hardline, such as the Liwaa al-Umma (Banner of the Nation) Brigade which was formed by Libyan jihadists. It too holds that every Muslim has a pressing religious obligation to fight to liberate Syrian from “the tyrant” and establish “right-guided Islamic rule” in the country.".

http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/10806

Of course, seeing that, I would never call them "anti-authoritarian" (as its usually applied to anarchist groups), but an Islamist ones. Regards,--HCPUNXKID (talk) 19:22, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Jihadi isn't synonymous with Islamist. Ther' ar' lots of sources explicitly stating that Liwaa al-Umma ar' not Jihadis and not Islamists. Putting "Ideology: Islamist" in the infobox and ignoring all the other sources is POV-pushing. ~Asarlaí 19:31, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

You are really saying that Jihadist are not Islamist? Wow, first time I hear that. So what are Jihadist? Please, explain me, I wanna learn. Taken literally from WP: "Jihadism (also jihadist movement or jihadi movement) is a controversial term to describe the renewed focus on armed jihad in Islamic fundamentalism.". What is POV-pushing is ignoring or denying sources that explicitly define LAU as Jihadist, while endorsing a vague term as "antiauthoritarian", wich can be applied to any armed group in the world, from Al-Qaeda to FARC. This type of things are the ones that made WP not credible, putting beliefs and feelings before information. Regards,--HCPUNXKID (talk) 18:51, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Look at your source. Al-Akhbar is M8 affiliated newspaper. So it is not much of a shockie that they have same stance on Syrian civil war as M8 figures, such as Aoun, Nasrallah or Berri. EllsworthSK (talk) 15:20, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

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