“We
have very few specifics which could explain what the US is exactly doing in
Syria and why the results of so many combat sorties are so insignificant,” Russian
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Russian channel NTV. “With,
as far as I know, 25,000 sorties they [US-led air campaign] could have smashed
the entire [country of] Syria into smithereens,” the minister
noted.
Lavrov
questioned the Western coalition's objectives in their air campaign, stressing
that Washington must decide whether its aim is to eliminate the jihadists or to
use extremist forces to pursue its own political agenda.
“Maybe
their stated goal is not entirely sincere? Maybe it is regime change?” Lavrov
said, as he expressed doubts that weapons and munitions supplied by the US to
the so-called “moderate
Syrian opposition” will
end up in terrorists’ hands.
“I
want to be honest, we barely have any doubt that at least a considerable part
of these weapons will fall into the terrorists’
hands,” Lavrov
said.
American
airlifters have reportedly dropped 50 tons of small arms ammunition and
grenades to Arab groups fighting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in
northern Syria. US officials assure concerned partis that the fighters have
been screened and are really confronting IS.
"We
do not want the events, when [some countries] not only cooperated with
terrorists but plainly relied on them, to happen again,” Lavrov
said, recalling that the French, for instance supplied weapons to
anti-government forces in Libya in violation of a UN Security Council
resolution.
Lavrov
has called on the US to “transcend
themselves” and decide what is more important,
either “misguided self-esteem realization” or
getting rid of the “greatest
threat” that
is challenging humanity.
Speaking
about the American refusal to answer Russia’s
calls to create a wider anti-ISIS coalition, Lavrov suggested that US reluctance
is based on a number of “factors
and causes.”
“It
is probably not very nice [for them] to see how effective[ly] our military is
working compared to the more than a year-long operations [of] the coalition
created by the United States of America, which has carried out, in my
estimates, about 60,000 sorties, half of which were supposed to be fighting
missions, yet the positive results 'on the ground' are not visible," Lavrov
said. "In contrast,
Islamic State and other terrorist groups such as Al-Nusra, which is a branch of
Al-Qaeda, only expanded its influence and territory in which they are ... truly
creating a caliphate, organizing people's lives by [their] ... own laws.”
On
Tuesday, Washington ‘adjusted’
its controversial program of aiding the Syrian rebels, opting to vet commanders
rather than individual fighters, and provide supplies instead of training.
“The
train-and-equip program has changed, but it has not gone away. We’re
still equipping moderate Syrian opposition fighters,” Colonel
Steve Warren, spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, told the press. 14
Oct. 2015 04:40 RT
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