Iran: Breakaway from Al-Qaeda No Change to Al-Nusra Front’s Terrorist Nature

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi underlined that Al-Nusra Front’s breakaway from Al-Qaeda and renaming the group will not change its terrorist nature.
“Changing the name of the Al-Nusra Front terrorist group to Fath al-Sham Front is like playing with words and its separation from the Al-Qaeda does not help the terrorists to come out of the list of terrorist groups,” Qassemi said.

“The goal of this game is to strike off this group from the list of terrorist groups as the ugly face of extremism and terrorism cannot be cleaned with such moves,” Qassemi added.

The Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said that such measures show the political bankruptcy of the supporters of extremism headed by Saudi Arabia as father and main supporter of Al-Qaeda, Taliban, the ISIL, Al-Nusra Front and many terrorist groups in the region, specially Syria.

Qassemi called on the international society to consider the causes and grounds resulting in emergence of the heinous phenomenon of terrorism and its effects on the same basis to exert pressure on the founders and supporters of the same groups for uprooting them.

The al-Qaeda branch in Syria, al-Nusra Front, announced its break from the parent terror organization in an apparent bid to gain more support from foreign powers.

In a rare televised message on Thursday, Nusra chief in Syria Abu Mohamad al-Jolani said his group will be rebranded and will end connections with entities outside Syria.

Jolani said Al-Nusra Front would change its name to Fath al-Sham Front (The Conquest of Syria Front), claiming the new group “will have no links whatsoever with foreign parties.”