Bahra: Syrians Suspect Cooperation between Assad and US Led Coalition

Hadi al-Bahra, president of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), warned in an interview with the Guardian newspaper on Monday that air strikes against Isis by the US-led coalition were weakening support inside Syria for already embattled non-extremist anti-Assad forces. “US-led attacks on ISIS are the product of a confused policy that is turning a blind eye to the crimes the Assad regime,” Bahra said. “The US-led coalition is fighting the symptom of the problem, which is ISIS, without addressing the main cause, which is the regime. People see coalition planes hitting ISIS targets but turning a blind eye to Assad’s air force, which is using barrel bombs and rockets against civilian targets in Aleppo and elsewhere. Bahra also made clear his opposition to ceasefire proposals being explored by the UN envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, which have been discussed in recent days in a flurry of unofficial reports and leaks. He said local ceasefires would only benefit the regime unless they were part of a comprehensive, negotiated political solution to a conflict that has cost 200,000 Syrian lives and displaced half the population since March 2011. “The Syrian people feel there is a hidden agenda and cooperation between the coalition and Assad’s forces because Assad assumes he has a free hand,” he said. “Syrian public opinion is a front which we need to win.” Bahra decried the fact that the US-led coalition was not liaising with the fighters of the Free Syrian Army. “The FSA is being ignored completely and this is weakening the international coalition operation because it is not able to achieve results on the ground,” he said. “The whole operation has been confused. Air strikes will not be able to win the battle against extremism. You have to defeat Isis on the ground. And you have to deal with the main cause and source of extremism, which is the regime itself.” President Bahra said earlier that “defeating ISIS requires deploying ground troops in conjunction with the air strikes launched by the international anti-ISIS coalition in order to fill the vacuum that would ensue after driving ISIS out of the areas under their control,” in an interview with the Anadolu news agency. “Defeating ISIS also requires coordination between the international coalition and the Free Syrian Army, the only force capable of eradicating terrorism and its root cause, namely the Assad regime which largely created this monster by deliberately setting free the extremists who fueled ISIS. We renew our outright rejection of both the Assad regime and ISIS and our commitment to build a Syria where all its citizens live free and with dignity regardless of their religion, sect or ethnicity.” (Source: Syrian Coalition)