By Dan Murphy, Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 10, 2012

The U.S. State  Department designated the Jabhat al-Nusra militia fighting Bashar al-Ashad's government in Syria a foreign terrorist organization today.

The speed with which the US government moved to designate a fairly new group that has never attacked US interests and is engaged in fighting a regime that successive administrations have demonized is evidence of the strange bedfellows and overlapping agendas that make the Syrian civil war so explosive.

The State Department says Jabhat al-Nusra (or the "Nusra Front") is essentially a wing of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the jihadi group that flourished in Anbar Province after the US invaded to topple the Baathist regime of secular dictator Saddam Hussein [....]

For the US, the situation is more complicated still. The Obama administration appears eager for Assad to fall, but is also afraid of what might replace him, not least because of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile [....]

Also see:

US declares Jabhat al-Nusra, a group in Syria with alleged al-Qaida links, as terrorist body
Associated Press, Dec. 10, 2012

[....] The move hasn’t been announced officially but was included in the Federal Register on Monday. The department said the group was part of al-Qaida in Iraq [....]

And:

Syrian sectarian fighting spills into Lebanon
By Carol Morello, Washington Post, Dec. 9, 2012

[....] In recent days, scattered reports have suggested that jihadi groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra are gaining ground in places where support for the Free Syrian Army is wearing thin [....]