Syrian Think Tank: Turkey, Qatar Trying to Unite Terrorists in Syria

Head of the Syrian Strategic Studies Center Taleb Zifa disclosed that Ankara and Doha are doing their best for the reconciliation of the foreign-backed terrorists fighting against the Syrian government.
“Qatar and Turkey are doing their best to unite the terrorists in order to prepare them to stop the Syrian army advances in the coming days and months,” Zifa told FNA on Tuesday.

Zifa noted that both Ankara and Doha want to play a role in any upcoming negotiations between the Syrian government and the United Nations.

Last month, Syria’s permanent ambassador to the United Nations called on the world body to punish “the terrorist coalition of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel”.

Speaking at a UN Security Council session on Tuesday, Bashar al-Jaafari said the coalition has been seeking to destroy Syria by fanning the flames of terrorism and shedding the blood of Syrian people.

In October 2012, Haitham Manna, a Paris-based veteran Syrian opposition figure, slammed Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey for infiltrating terrorists into Syria.

Speaking at London School of Economics, Manna said the Syrian crisis would deteriorate if the status quo continues, adding that the world powers are responsible for the lack of a proper solution to the Syrian crisis.

Major powers have refused to take any measure for the settlement of the Syrian crisis so far and only resorted to theatrical conferences dubbed “Syrian friends”, he said, adding they have presented no democratic reform plan for the crisis-hit country.

The Syrian opposition figure supported the plan offered by the UN and Arab League envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, for truce in Syria during the Eid Al-Adha holiday (starting on October 26), and expressed the hope that the measure could serve as a prelude to ceasefire in Syria.

In September 2012, sources revealed that Turkey’s national air carrier, Turkish Air, transited Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants from North Waziristan in Pakistan to the Turkish borders with Syria, mentioning that the last group were flown to Hatay on a Turkish Air Airbus flight No. 709 on September 10, 2012.

“The Turkish intelligence agency sent 93 Al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists from Waziristan to Hatay province near the border with Syria on a Turkish Air Airbus flight No. 709 on September 10, 2012 and via the Karachi-Istanbul flight route,” the source told FNA, adding that the flight had a short stop in Istanbul.

The 93 terrorists transited to the Turkish border with Syria included Al-Qaeda militants from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and a group of Arabs residing in Waziristan, he added.

The source, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of his information, further revealed that the Turkish intelligence agency is coordinating its measures with the CIA and the Saudi and Qatari secret services.

FNA dispatches from Pakistan said new al-Qaeda members were trained in North Waziristan until a few days ago and then sent to Syria, but now they are transferring their command center to the borders between Turkey and Syria as a first step to be followed by a last move directly into the restive parts of Syria on the other side of the border.

The al-Qaeda, backed by Turkey, the US and its regional Arab allies, had set up a new camp in Northern Waziristan in Pakistan to train Salafi and Jihadi terrorists and dispatched them to Syria via Turkish borders.

“A new Al-Qaeda has been created in the region through the financial and logistical backup of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and a number of western states, specially the US,” a source told FNA earlier this month.

“Turkey has also been misusing extremist Salafis and Al-Qaeda terrorists to intensify the crisis in Syria and it has recently augmented its efforts in this regard by helping the new Al-Qaeda branch set up a camp in Northern Waziristan in Pakistan to train Al-Qaeda and Taliban members as well as Turkish Salafis and Arab Jihadis who are later sent to Syria for terrorist operations,” said the source.

He said the camp in Waziristan is not just a training center, but a command center for terrorist operations against Syria.

Yet, the source said the US and Britain are looking at the new Al-Qaeda force as an instrument to attain their goals and do not intend to support them to ascend to power, “because if Salafi elements in Syria ascend to power, they will create many problems for the US, the Western states and Turkey in future”.

“Thus, the US, Britain and Turkey are looking at the Al-Qaeda as a tactical instrument,” he said, and warned of the regional and global repercussions of the US and Turkish aid to the Al-Qaeda and Salafi groups.

“Unfortunately, these group of countries have just focused on the short-term benefits that the Salafis and the Al-Qaeda can provide for them and ignore the perils of this support in the long run,” he said.

“At present, the western countries, specially Britain which hosts and controls the Jihadi Salafi groups throughout the world are paving the ground for these extremists to leave their homes – mostly in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Untied Arab Emirates (UAE) as well as those who live in Europe and the US – for Waziristan,” the source added.

The US and its western and regional allies have long sought to topple Bashar al-Assad and his ruling system.