Luay Mekdad, FSA’s political and media coordinator, hailed the recent FSA’s fighting of Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (ISIS). “It is time for ISIS to retreat to their original strongholds, represented by Assad’s security branches who created this group to try to infiltrate the ranks of the revolutionaries,” he stressed. Mekdad also states that “fighting ISIS does not represent deviation from the course of the revolution, nor is it a form of self-attrition, as ISIS is part of the Assad regime.” Furthermore, Mekdad wondered about ISIS’s military policy, as it has been known to fight the revolutionaries and civilians in the liberated areas. “ISIS is a stab in the back of the Syrian Revolution. ISIS’s fighters do not fight in the real battles fought by the FSA against the Assad regime, including in Raqqa, Aleppo, Qusair and all confrontations with the Assad regime,” Mekdad added. Moreover, Abdel Basset Sida, member of the political committee, said that “ISIS, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), and the terrorist militias of Hezbollah are in fact tools used by the Assad regime to hold on to power.” Sida adds that “we should have decisively dealt with ISIS and others since the beginning. It is important to realize that these factions are made by the regime with the aim of creating chaos in the ranks of the revolutionaries. There is an urgent need to face the facts, accept the reality of this situation, and deal with it more seriously as soon as possible.” (Source: Syrian Coalition)