French military agents met Syria militants: Report

French military agents have held face-to-face meetings with members of militant groups inside Syria to identify “recipients for possible weapons supplies,” a report says.

According to a report published by the French newspaper Le Figaro on Friday, the French military advisors were sent to “assess the situation on the ground.”

“Their main task was to know who controls the battlegrounds around Damascus,” the paper stated.

The meetings were held last month and an unnamed French military source has confirmed them, the report said, adding that the French government wants to know the “operational capacity of each group” and their “political colors.”

US and British agents have also held talks with the militants inside Syria recently, the report added.

France became the first European country to recognize Syria’s opposition coalition on November 13.

The French government has said it would consider the issue of arming the militants against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011.

The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and that certain Western states and their regional allies such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey have been trying to fuel the turmoil.

There are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals. Several international human rights organizations have accused the foreign-sponsored militants of committing war crimes.