Russia’s successful military intervention against terrorist groups operating in Syria is further proof that the US was supporting extremist groups in the Middle East rather than fighting them, a former American intelligence linguist in Florida says.
Unlike the Russian military strikes, the US-led coalition's war against Daesh (ISIL or ISIS) was ineffective and has produced limited results, Scott Rickard told Press TV on Tuesday.
“Russia has exposed the US façade of creating their own terrorist organization, and now that Russia has decided to obliterate the terrorist organizations that the Americans have been supporting in and around Syria, it’s proven to be a very good move strategically,” Rickard said.
Russia started its air campaign in Syria last week to target terrorist groups fighting the Syrian government.
Russian warships also began to launch missiles into Syria from the Caspian Sea on Wednesday.
The missiles mark a significant escalation of Russian involvement in the region and a growing crisis for US foreign policy in Syria.
“The Americans were caught red-handed, exposing the fact that they’ve been allowing multiple locations of ISIS operation to continue without being bombed or interrupted,” Rickard said.
“The particular organizations that the Americans were claiming were moderate rebels were actually feeding the ISIS organizations with weapons and intelligence and so on and so forth and the Russians came in and did a great job,” he added.
A new US intelligence assessment indicates that Russia has targeted militant groups backed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Syria.
Obama administration officials are debating how the United States can come to the aid of its proxy forces on the ground without risking a broader conflict with Moscow.