Assad regime ‘to blame for ISIL’

Hadi Al Bahra, chairman of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, met senior UAE officials responsible for dealing with the Syrian conflict, including Dr Anwar Gargash,Show more

ABU DHABI // The Assad regime is responsible for the rise of ISIL and both must be destroyed, Syria’s moderate opposition leader said in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.

Hadi Al Bahra, chairman of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, met senior UAE officials responsible for dealing with the Syrian conflict, including Dr Anwar Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs.

The Islamist extremist group that has captured swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq “emanated from the womb of this despotism, this regime that governed Syria for more than half a century”, he said. “The main cause of terrorism in despotism.”

Mr Al Bahra praised the UAE’s willingness to join US-led military action against ISIL. The UAE was addressing the conflict properly and “stands clearly against terrorism”, he said, and he accused the Assad regime of using terrorism against the rebels.

Mr Al Bahra said a plan was in place to improve the Syrian rebels’ organisation, amid reports of in-fighting among moderate opposition groups.

“The plan which we have put together has been on reorganising and restructuring the forces of the Free Syrian Army and the central command leadership of the Syrian National Coalition,” he said.

“This by itself will improve their activities and improve the results they are achieving on the ground.”

Mr Al Bahra did not specify what aid had been promised to the Syrian opposition, and said the international community had not finalised a strategy on how to combat ISIL.

“We are trying to play the part in directing and contributing to this strategy, but for us, as Syrians, we have a strategy that we are already implementing inside Syria, already paying the price of it.

“While they are discussing how to combat ISIL, we are fighting on the ground. And we are losing hundreds of people every day,” he said.

The opposition leader declined to say whether the Assad regime or ISIL should be attacked first. “In war, you cannot make a preference, this or that,” he said.

“We will be carrying a true offensive against the regime and against ISIL at the same time.”

When asked whether the fight against ISIL should be expanded to other extremist rebel groups, such as the Al Qaeda-backed Jabhat Al Nusra, Mr Al Bahra said moderate opposition forces rejected all such armed groups.

“For us, the definition of accepted armed groups and non-accepted armed groups is that any armed group trying to enforce on the Syrian people their ideologies or their beliefs, by force of arms, is not accepted in the revolution forces,” he said.

“The history of Syria is written today, and it will not be written by guns.

“It will be written by great minds, by young people and enforced by the Free Syrian Army fighting to achieve the goals of the revolution.”

The Syrian national coalition was founded in 2012 and includes national and local council members as well as representatives of social groups.