All rebel fractions are almost explosively Syrian. The only foreign unit is small Jeish Muhaherin wa-Ansar.
Assad on other hand is supported by swarm of foreign militias:
As for Nusra - thats another Assad creation. This Assad cleric Abu-Qaqaa was sending Sunni youth to do Jihad in Iraq:
I guess Assad hoped that they all will die there. But some returned, they were arrested by Assad. And after revolution Assad released them to radicalize the opposition.
How much evidence can I give you before you finally accept the truth?
This is a report on Foreign Fighters in Syria dated June 2014.
Please bookmark this link. It's from an American Intelligence firm, so you don't have an excuse to call it pro-assad.
http://soufangroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/TSG-Foreign-Fighters-in-Syria.pdf
Here are some of the important stuff from "Key Findings"
1)
Over 12,000 foreign fighters have gone to Syria since the 3-year conflict began, more than traveled to Afghanistan during its ten-year war and violent aftermath. And they continue to arrive.
2) Foreign fighters have gone to Syria from
at least 81 countries and from all parts of the globe.
3)
About 3,000 foreign fighters are from Western countries.
4) Motivation for going varies, but the ‘jihadist’ narrative is common among those who are joining extremist groups – and they make up the majority,
5) The three groups that have attracted the most foreign fighters, despite the in-fighting between them,
are Ahrar al-Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State of Iraq and the Greater Syria (ISIS). All these were founded by people who at the time were members of al-Qaeda. These groups tend to be more inclusive, better organized, and better financed than their more moderate counterparts.
While the report also mentions Irani/Lebanese/Iraqi fighters on the side of the government, the key findings show clearly that the opposition was able to attract massive amount of foreign fighters since the early days of the revolution for Jihadist purposes.
Here is the report quoting from a FSA fighter,
"
As an illustration of the variety and mix of foreign fighters, a commander in the Free Syrian
Army, interviewed for this paper in April 2014, said:
"Some of them fought with me in my battalion in Aleppo. The nationalities I remember were Saudis, Tunisians, Libyans, Egyptians, Pakistanis, Russians, Chechens and Germans. I also met an American. All those I met were Muslims and the majority were converts."
The report also gives examples, such as,
In March 2014, a member of Ahrar al-Sham, a group associated with al-Qaeda, described a Swedish couple that had driven independently to Turkey and then joined a humanitarian convoy going to Idlib. As head of a local battalion, the man had asked them how Ahrar al-Sham might help. Speaking broken formal Arabic, the Swedish man had said that he had come for ‘Jihad’ and wanted a gun. He was provided with an AK 47, and his wife with a pistol. The Swedish man was a 22 year-old convert to Islam, his wife was 21. A British woman, who had converted to Islam some four years earlier, went on her own to Syria in 2013 with a similar motivation, having been unable to find anyone who would go with her. Soon after her arrival she entered an arranged marriage with a Swedish fighter
I don't know why I waste time finding so much evidence for you, because I know your brain won't even register the information.
Want even further evidence?
How about this Reuters (not PressTV, not RT, so no excuse of pro-Assad bias) article from
August 2012,
INSIGHT-Syria rebels see future fight with foreign radicals| Reuters
"Abu Bakr, a Syrian rebel commander on the outskirts of Aleppo, is a devoted Islamist determined to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. But the
radical allies that have joined the rebels in recent months alarm even him.
"Let me be clear. I am an Islamist, my fighters are Islamists. But there is more than one type of Islamist," he told Reuters. "
These men coming fought in insurgencies like Iraq. They are too extreme, they want to blow up any symbol of the state, even schools."
Seventeen months into the uprising against Assad, Syria's rebels are grateful for the support of Islamist fighters from around the region.
They bring weapons, money, expertise and determination to the fight."
..
"Some men crouching among gutted buildings wore shalwar kameez, the loose trousers and shirts worn in Afghanistan and Pakistan but uncommon in Syria. They had long beards cleanly cut along their jaw line, a style associated with Salafism, an austere Sunni school which seeks to replicate life in the age of the Prophet Mohamed. As soon as journalists approached, the men vanished into buildings."
Here is an other Reuters article from
2012,
Jihadists join Aleppo fight, eye Islamic state, surgeon says| Reuters
"
Jacques Beres, co-founder of medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, returned from Syria on Friday evening after spending two weeks working clandestinely in a hospital in the besieged northern Syrian city.
In an interview with Reuters in his central Paris apartment on Saturday, the 71-year-old said that contrary to his previous visits to Homs and Idlib earlier this year about 60 percent of those he had treated this time had been rebel fighters and
that at least half of them had been non-Syrian.
"It's really something strange to see. They are directly saying that they aren't interested in Bashar al-Assad's fall, but are thinking about how to take power afterwards and set up an Islamic state with sharia law to become part of the world Emirate," the doctor said."
