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.