Hadi al-Bahra, president of the Syrian Coalition, called on the ambassadors of the Friends of Syria group to supply the displaced persons, the refugees and the trapped people in the Syrian cities, especially in East Ghouta with winter coats, tents and stoves to help them cope with the approaching winter during a meeting that was also attended by Nasr al-Hariri, Secretary General of the Syrian Coalition, and Ahmad Tomeh, the interim government’s president-designate. He also pointed to the humanitarian catastrophe taking place in Atmeh refugee camp on the Syrian-Turkish borders and other refugee camps. Bahra praised the initiative of the Friends of Syria group that the Syrian Coalition is the only party that defines the priorities of projects needed by the situation in Syria. Hariri said during the meeting that “the financial and economic support is the most outstanding problem that slow down the wheel of the revolution. More precisely, the problem does not lie in the scarcity of financial support we receive, but also this support is not channeled through one source. In other words, financial support achieve the required results only when it is constantly channeled through the Syrian Coalition which has executive bodies working on the ground in Syria. The scarcity of financial support has in one way or another given rise to the extremist groups. It is undeniable that many militants were attracted to ISIS by the monthly salaries and the unlimited financial support.” Hariri stresses that the problem of extremism in Syria has never been caused by certain ideologies, but by the environment created by the Assad regime and the international silence and the failure to take firm action against its terrorist attacks on the Syrian people. There is a pressing need at this critical stage of the Syrian revolution to dispel that feeling experienced by the Syrian people that the world has abandoned them in their quest for their legal rights. The Syrian people feel very disappointed when they compare the supported they receive from their backers to the support provided to the Assad regime by his Russian and Iranian allies.” (Source: Syrian Coalition)