US-led coalition helping ISIL in Syria

The US-led coalition purportedly fighting against the ISIL Takfiri group in Syria has invigorated the Takfiri militants, a Russian official says.

Since late September, the US and some of its Arab allies have been conducting airstrikes against the ISIL terrorist group inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate. However, the raids have so far failed to dislodge the Takfiri group.

The US-led coalition is “playing into the hands” of the ISIL Takfiri group, special presidential representative Aleksandr Zmeevsky said in an interview with Russia’s TASS news agency.

Syrian “radicals were significantly aided and had direct external sponsorship, one could say, blatant pandering to the growth of their influence and help in promoting their brands as fighters against unwanted regimes,” he added.

Member states of the coalition have been seeking “self-serving geopolitical goals under the guise of fighting terror,” the presidential aide said.

He also rejected foreign intervention in the Syrian crisis without the Syrian government’s approval.

Moscow “continued to insist that in no case can one consolidate the practice of using force to combat terrorism by circumventing international law on the basis of securing someone else’s one-sided geopolitical interests,” Zmeevsky said .

He further noted that Russia advocates a “comprehensive approach to the issue of combating international terrorism.”

The Takfiri groups operating in Syria and Iraq are threatening security in the Middle East and the whole world, Putin’s special aide said.

Syria has been grappling with a deadly crisis since March 2011. Western powers and their regional allies – especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey – are the main supporters of the militants operating inside Syria.

More than 200,000 people have died so far in the conflict in Syria, according to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein.