Analyst: US Regards ISIL as Key Weapon against Syrian President Assad

Analyst: US Regards ISIL as Key Weapon against Syrian President Assad
Wed Sep 23, 2015 18:24:45

The US military strategy in Syria is aimed at “containing” terrorist groups to a point where they can still fight the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a political analyst in Virginia says.

The primary objective of the White House is the overthrow of the Assad government with the assistance of militant groups including ISIL, said Keith Preston, the chief editor and director of AttacktheSystem.com.

“The reason for that is because the United States wants to eliminate all independent regimes in the Middle East that are not under the control of Washington,” Preston told Press TV on Wednesday.

“It’s also true that the United States would like to see ISIS contained,” he added, using another acronym for ISIL.

“The United States would prefer that ISIS go away but not at the expense of strengthening the Assad regime; the United States regards the Assad regime as its foremost enemy and for that reason ISIS is considered to be a useful weapon against the Assad regime,” Preston observed.

Preston argued that new reports that US-trained militants are betraying their American backers and handing their weapons over to al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists in Syria are understandable within the US “geopolitical strategy” of removing Assad and containing ISIL.

Militants with “Division 30,” who had just graduated from a US-led military training program in Turkey, surrendered to the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria, The Telegraph reported on Monday, quoting a number of sources.

The so-called “moderate” militants are said to have given up all their guns and equipment immediately after entry into Syria.

Syria has been gripped by deadly unrest since March 2011. According to reports, the United States and its regional allies - especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey - are supporting the militants operating inside the country.

ISIL terrorists, with members from several Western countries, have been active in Iraq, Syria and more recently in Libya, committing acts of terror against people of different religious and ethnic communities, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, Christians and others; Press TV reported.

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