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Salafist groups in Syria not being held accountable

Monday, 19 December 2016 10:53 AM [ Last Update: Monday, 19 December 2016 11:00 AM ]

The burning of buses on the way to Foah and Kefraya has put the evacuation plan from eastern Aleppo into doubt. (Reuters)

After scoring a major victory against militants and liberating the eastern part of the northwestern city of Aleppo, the Syrian government agreed to allow militants and their families to leave the city in exchange for the evacuation of civilians in the two besieged Shia villages of al-Fou'a and Kefraya in neighboring Idlib. But the militants violated an initial evacuation deal with the government and further complicated the process by setting ablaze the buses sent to the two villages for the evacuation of trapped residents. We have spoken to Muhammad Ali Carter, a journalist and commentator from London, to get his opinion about the status quo in Aleppo.

Carter told Press TV that Salafist militants, who are not being held responsible for their violation of the ceasefire in Aleppo, resort to any tactics to continue to wreak havoc in the war-torn Arab country.

“These are groups that are linked to al-Qaeda. They are al-Qaeda’s representatives in Syria. When you put that into perspective, you actually realize that this (setting buses on fire) is very typical behavior for them,” Carter said on Sunday night.

“The terrorist groups are completely untamed and they have all sorts of crazy political agendas of their own, which don’t even match that of their financial backers,” he noted, adding these groups are not accountable to anyone and “that is the real problem.”

“They want to create a Salafist caliphate in the same way that the Daesh does,” he argued, saying, “Daesh is not the only Salafist extremist group operating in Syria. There are dozens of al-Qaeda-linked extremist radical Salafist terror groups.”

Despite the fact that “many of [the militant groups] have been labeled as terrorist organizations in countries like the United States, they happened to be fighting with American weapons and they are receiving political support from NATO members such as Turkey,” he stated.

According to the analyst, the United States and European states expect countries like Russia and Iran to always be prepared to negotiate, whereas they neglect ceasefire violations by the militant groups.

He also warned that the militants are not “moderate” as they are being described in the West.

Syria has been plagued by a bloody war waged by terrorist groups. The conflict has continued for more than five years because the West and its regional allies have been funding and arming the terrorist groups in a bid to overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

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