Iraq’s Hezbollah Al-Nujaba: US Seeks to Exonerate Terrorists by Renaming Al-Nusra Front

“The Al-Nusra Front was renamed after the US and Russia’s agreement on the crisis in Syria and the Americans want to remove clothing of terrorism from the body of al-Nusra Front and bring it back on the scene in disguise and in the clothes of moderate dissidents,” al-Kaabi said on Sunday.

Stressing that there is no difference between the al-Nusra Front and other terrorist groups operating in Syria and Iraq, he said the al-Nusra Front is attempting to find a place for itself among the dissidents favored by the US.

Elsewhere, Kaabi referred to the operations to retake the strategic city of Mosul in Nineveh province back from the terrorists, and said liberation of Mosul means annihilation of the ISIL.

The al-Qaeda branch in Syria, al-Nusra Front, announced in July its break from the parent terror organization in an apparent bid to gain more support from foreign powers.

After the development, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi underlined that al-Nusra Front’s breakaway from al-Qaeda and renaming the group will not change its terrorist nature.

“Changing the name of the al-Nusra Front terrorist group to Fath al-Sham Front is like playing with words and its separation from the Al-Qaeda does not help the terrorists to come out of the list of terrorist groups,” Qassemi said.

“The goal of this game is to strike off this group from the list of terrorist groups as the ugly face of extremism and terrorism cannot be cleaned with such moves,” he added.

The Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said that such measures show the political bankruptcy of the supporters of extremism headed by Saudi Arabia as father and main supporter of Al-Qaeda, Taliban, the ISIL, Al-Nusra Front and many terrorist groups in the region, specially Syria.

Qassemi called on the international society to consider the causes and grounds resulting in emergence of the heinous phenomenon of terrorism and its effects on the same basis to exert pressure on the founders and supporters of the same groups for uprooting them.