NP - ISIS

[David Morris]

WSJ:

The Islamic State, which metastasized from a group of militants seeking to
overthrow the Syrian government into a marauding army gobbling up chunks of
the Middle East, gained momentum early on from a calculated decision by
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to go easy on it, according to people
close to the regime.

Earlier in the three-year-old Syrian uprising, Mr. Assad decided to mostly
avoid fighting the Islamic State to enable it to cannibalize the more
secular rebel group supported by the West, the Free Syrian Army, said Izzat
Shahbandar, an Assad ally and former Iraqi lawmaker who was Baghdad's
liaison to Damascus. The goal, he said, was to force the world to choose
between the regime and extremists.
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