Legislator Blames Riyadh, Doha, Ankara for Syrian Crisis

A senior Iranian lawmaker lashed out at certain countries for their policy of arms shipment to terrorist groups in Syria, and blamed Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey for the ongoing violence in the Muslim country.

“Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are carrying out Western plots in Syria,” member of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Mohammad Saleh Jokar said on Saturday.

The Iranian legislator noted that the said countries have intensified militancy in Syria through their financial and military support for foreign-backed armed rebels.

Earlier this month, a British paper published a report titled ‘US and Allies Are Training Rebels in Fight against Assad’.

The Times said that “the US and several of its European allies are overseeing training bases for the Syrian rebels in Jordan in an effort to bolster moderate groups fighting to overthrow President (Bashar) Assad”.

The paper indicated that “the move is the most far-reaching US involvement yet in the Syrian crisis”.

It further quoted intelligence officers and diplomats in the region as saying that “rebel fighters are being offered training ranging from the use of light arms to more complicated maneuvers, such as how to secure chemical-weapons facilities”.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011 with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border guards being reported across the country.

Hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed, when some protest rallies turned into armed clashes.

The government blames outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups for the deaths, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad.

In October 2011, calm was eventually restored in the Arab state after President Assad started a reform initiative in the country, but Israel, the US and its Arab allies are seeking hard to bring the country into chaos through any possible means. Tel Aviv, Washington and some Arab capitals have been staging various plots in the hope of increasing unrests in Syria.