100s of US troops, CIA agents helping ISIL in Syria, Iraq: Don DeBar
An American political commentator says there are hundreds of US troops or CIA agents with the ISIL in Iraq and Syria to help the terrorist group.
Don DeBar, an anti-war activist and radio host in New York, made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV on Wednesday while commenting on a recent report which says there are as many as 300 American nationals fighting alongside ISIL members.
Senior US officials have told The Washington Times that the US government is currently tracking and gathering intelligence on American militants who could return to the homeland and commit terrorist attacks with skills obtained abroad.
DeBar said the ISIL “group is a construct of the US military intelligence. This is a terrorist cell that was organized by the US in order to destabilize Syria and perhaps other countries – they even made a threat against Saudi Arabia whether that’s just to make them look like they are on a particular ideological plane, or if it’s an actual threat, it’s a proxy threat from the US to Saudi Arabia.”
“My belief is that there are Americans that are a part of ISIL/ISIS with the knowledge of the US government and an assignment by the US government,” he added.
DeBar stated that there are perhaps 300 Americans fighting with ISIL “and then hundreds more US regulars, with CIA or whatever military formation they have, under the direction of US intelligence, that are a part of this. It doesn’t require that they are American nationals, of course, just that their paycheck is signed in Washington or Langley.”
“If you look at the outcomes of every action that this group has taken, they facilitate actions that the United States has wanted to take, has declared that it wanted to take a number of times, or has taken when it could, but it can’t get the authority from the [UN] Security Council to approve because they violate the integrity and sovereignty of either Iraq and/or Syria, and also would enable actions that violate a resolution that just passed the House of Representatives massively, last week or the week before, that attempt to constrains, at least on paper, the president from making anymore wars without specific authority from Congress,” he noted.
“So, it’s no surprise for me that there are Americans in their units. There would be a surprise to me if they were all dupes and unemployed kids, who got duped, sucked into fight over there with a bunch of the crazies. It wouldn’t surprise me if you had good portion of units, including command and control, that would direct employees of the Pentagon and/or Langley,” DeBar concluded.
ISIL controls large parts of Syria’s northern territory. The group sent its fighters into neighboring Iraq in June, quickly seizing large swaths of land straddling the border between the two countries.
The US military has begun planning for airstrikes against ISIL targets in Syria after last week’s beheading of American journalist James Foley. The US has launched a limited air campaign against the terrorist group in Iraq since August 8.
