Syrian actions have killed the smiles. Is that helping ISIS? UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (left) meets Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Illustrative. Photo Courtesy of UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe.
The Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad is thought to have killed 12,000 people through the use of barrel bombs, most of them civilians, in that nation’s lengthy civil war. And the United States believes tactics such as that one are fueling the rise the of the extremist ISIS (ISIL) terror group. “We’ve been clear that there’s no better recruiting tool for ISIL than the brutality of the Assad regime,” US spokesperson Jen Psaki said on Thursday in comments released by the State Department.
“As we have long said, Bashar al-Assad lost legitimacy long ago and will never be an effective counterterrorism partner.” Psaki’s comments came after she pointed out that two human rights groups have demonstrated the regime is using barrel bombs. These weapons, according to past comments by US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, are “packed with high explosives and shards of metal, deliberately designed to kill as many people indiscriminately as possible.”
Power delivered new comments about Syria’s use of barrel bombs on Thursday, highlighting an incident in the recent UN Commission of Inquiry buy klonopin usa report on Syria. “The first barrel bomb reportedly killed civilians in its area of impact, and buried more in rubble. When others rushed to the area to dig out the people buried and assist the wounded, the government dropped a second barrel bomb,” said Power, whose comments to the UN Security Council were released by her office.
“At least 15 people were killed in all, most of them women and children. Some of the wounded later died in field hospitals, according to the report, due to the lack of necessary medical supplies.”
Power echoed her colleague’s assessment that actions by the Syrian regime have benefitted ISIS, which the US calls ISIL. “We must remember that the rise of these violent extremist groups in Syria would not have happened without the atrocities perpetrated by the Assad regime… So any plan that would ally the international community with Assad to confront these violent extremist groups would be completely counterproductive, as it would further fuel ISIL’s rise.”
Power called for a “comprehensive political solution” to the civil war and urged the UN Security Council to recommit to its resolutions on Syria, including punishing “those responsible for violations and abuses.”
(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themideastupdate.com, February 26, 2015)