| An analyst says the Syrian people reject the insurgents in the country because of their “grotesque terrorist-type” destruction of non-military targets which resembles the actions of the anti-Iran Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO). |
Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011. Damascus says outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorists are the driving factor behind the unrest and deadly violence while the opposition accuses the security forces of being behind the killings.
Western states have been calling for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down. However, Russia and China are strongly opposed to the Western drive to oust him.
The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the armed militants are foreign nationals, mostly from Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan.
Press TV has conducted an interview with Beirut-based international lawyer and director of the Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace movement, Franklin Lamb, to further shed light on the issue.
The video also offers the opinions of two other guests: political analyst, George Jabour in Damascus and political commentator, Joseph Zrnchick, in Chicago.
The following is a rough transcription of the interview.
Press TV: Mr. Franklin Lamb, what is it about these various groups that even the US has said that they’re extremely disorganized. What is the main problem behind all of these different groups that it seems that they just can’t get it together?
Lamb: Well, as the report suggested it looks like the inability to collaborate has to do with a number of factors including personal ambitions of different groups. Funding from outside Syria of certain groups where the paymaster expects certain results. I think there is a great deal of suspicion among these different groups. We’re seeing even on the ground in Syria among the fighters, suspicions greater actually than we’re seeing in Libya.
So I think that’s a problem but I want to note that the recent report seemed to suggest that the population of Syria are rejecting these rebel groups because of their behavior...
Press TV: Mr. Lamb, we look at the situation with some of the armed opposition in Syria and some people are making analogies to an Iranian group that has just become delisted from the terrorist list, the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) that during the time of the war they fought against their own people and these people now they are within Syria itself but many would say actually fighting against the people not fighting for the people. Do you see similarities in these groups?
Lamb: Well, I do see a similarity and I just want to pick up on what our colleague from Chicago said you know about what some of these rebels are doing. It seems to me that the pendulum is decisively now moving against these armed groups by the population at large. If we consider the case of Aleppo, the last three days that is an irreplaceable city, the south west part, the Salaheddin part; it’s a UNESCO historic site, to be preserved from the seventeenth century.
These rebels are burning irreplaceable shops, there is no military target there and the population knows it and the population is horrified that they’re destroying the soul of that region in many respects being the special aspects of Aleppo. So I think these disorganized groups are doing an awfully lot of grotesque terrorist-type destruction, much like the MKO (MEK) has done.
I think that this is why the population of Syria is increasingly rejecting them as they see needless destruction that are not military targets. There is no reason for those rebels to be burning those shops and destroying Syrian culture.
Press TV: Mr. Franklin Lamb, what’s your take on that? What needs to be done?
Lamb: Well, as you know there are now six peace plans, even Tunisia came up with another one out of the United Nations. What has to be done is the international community, the UN, the Arab League, the International Islamic Conference; they just got to put pressure on both sides to do the first thing that Morsi says has got to be done. The same thing that Anan said and that’s a ceasefire; ceasefire and then dialogue.
http://presstv.com/detail/2012/10/01/264391/syria-insurgents-akin-to-mko-terrorists/