European countries seek military intervention in Syria: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Manuel Ochsenreiter, editor in chief at Zuerst! Magazine, in Berlin, to discuss recent reports by Germany’s foreign intelligence agency that confirm Daesh Takfiri terrorists' use of chemical weapons in Syria.

Following is a rough transcription.

Press TV: Give us your thoughts on the recent news divulged by Germany’s foreign intelligence agency alluding to the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group using chemical weapons in northern Iraq.

Ochsenreiter: Well, I think this type of news has always several levels to analyze. So first of all, it is not new that the terrorists of the so-called Islamic State (ISIL) are using chemical weapons. We had some incidents and war crimes before on the same level but what is much more interesting in this context is where are they getting it from? Though we know that mustard gas is not let us call it the most sophisticated chemical weapon. It is a very old one, they are using it since World War I and we know for example that Turkey was using gas already in the wars against Kurds in the past. But their let me call it the public anger about this was much less than if now for example the ISIL would use that.

So the interesting question is where does the ISIL get those chemical weapons from and other point also interesting where we see now that the German intelligence is now involved in these things. We have always to see with the things happening now in the Middle East, especially when it comes to the ISIL it has always a sort of theatrical character, let me call it like a propagandist theatrical character.

If we look now in the political debates in Europe, we have a lot of warmongering, a lot of war drums are beaten right now since a couple of weeks. It has especially also to do with the refugee crisis that they say we have to now do military intervention much more. So this could be also a pretext now, this chemical attack against the Kurds by the ISIL could also be a pretext to involve more European military forces on the battleground in Syria and Iraq, because this didn’t work out so much in the past.

We have also to see, this is the last point, that especially the Kurds enjoying a huge sympathy in Europe. By the way, when something happens against the Kurds you have much more media presence than if for example Shia minorities are attacked or if Christian minorities are attacked. The Kurdish Peshmerga and the Kurdish forces have much more support in the European powers because the Kurdish entity in northern Iraq is somehow considered as an ally and a proxy. So this is also the perfect ground to make a pretext for much more military involvement and I think these are things which should be seen in the bigger picture when it comes to the war crimes of the ISIL.

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