A former US official has warned that the Western support of militants fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad will backfire on the West, Press TV reports.
œYou really do wonder at some point, when the Western governments will understand that you cannot support moderate terrorists; that if you support moderate terrorists or the people you think are moderate, you are going to get blowback of those terrorists back against your own countries,” said James Jatras, a Washington-based former advisor to the US Senate, in an interview with Press TV on Thursday.
Jatras further described the experience and training that the militants gain in the Middle Eastern country as a œsubstantial risk”, saying, œIt underlies the wrongheadedness of the Western policy in supporting” the militants.
“So as the foreign fighters become a very substantial element of the anti-Assad forces in Syria, and as these even relatively small numbers of individuals from the UK, the United States, France and so forth become integrated with these foreign fighters from elsewhere that are coming into Syria plus the more radical elements in Syria, I think that they become a very substantial threat to our country even if they are not that large of a proportion of the entire group,” he said.
Jatras also blamed the West for providing the militants with weapons, saying, œI do not see what pouring more weapons into the hands of the rebels is going to accomplish except more suffering and more killing and more destabilization of the region.”
On Wednesday, the militants shelled an oil refinery in the central city of Homs, which reportedly left no casualties.
Syria has been gripped by deadly turmoil since 2011. Reports indicate that the Western powers and their regional allies — especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey — are supporting the militants operating inside the country.
According to the United Nations, more than 100,000 people have been killed and millions of others displaced in the violence.
The UN also said on Monday that over four million more Syrians will be forced out of their homes in 2014 by the escalating conflict in the country.
IA/HN/MHB
Copyright: Press TV