Syria's Assad says Paris attacks result of French policy | Agence France-Presse

[BootinUp]

Last edited Sat Nov 14, 2015, 10:20 AM - Edit history (1)

https://twitter.com/AFP/status/665487240563400704


There is now an article on this topic from AFP:

http://news.yahoo.com/syrias-assad-paris-attacks-result-french-policy-115442310.html;_ylt=AwrC0CaEI0dWHxUAN1HQtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTByOHZyb21tBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg--

Damascus (AFP) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Saturday that French policy had contributed to the "spread of terrorism" that culminated in attacks claimed by the Islamic State group which killed 128 people in Paris.

"The terrorist attacks that targeted the French capital Paris cannot be separated from what happened in the Lebanese capital Beirut lately and from what has been happening in Syria for the past five years and in other areas," he said.

Assad was referring to twin bombings claimed by IS which killed 44 people on Thursday in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of his Lebanese ally, Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

Assad regards all the rebel groups fighting his forces inside Syria as "terrorists", not just IS.

continued at link above.

[BeyondGeography]

1. Fuck off, barrel bomber

[leveymg]

2. The original AFP "BREAKING" tweet doesn't exist or has been withdrawn.

Dead link.

[BootinUp]

3. Works here.

[leveymg]

5. The internal link to the "AFP Breaking" has been withdrawn. That's the comments thread.

Nothing there. https://twitter.com/hashtag/BREAKING?src=hash

[Codeine]

4. The link works for me. nt

[leveymg]

6. See #5

[BootinUp]

7. The OP is edited to include the article they have now published

[leveymg]

8. France most certainly has a role in Syrian regime change that sparked the civil war and ISIS

Right from the very beginning by hosting, funding, training and encouraging Paris-based opposition groups. It's called blowback, and it's happened on numerous occasions in France. In fact, this is the second major attack in Paris by ISIS.

[BootinUp]

10. I don't know what the first one is you refer to.

Assad is scum and I reject his feeble attempt to take blame off himself for the mess in Syria. There is no reason to justify a terrorist action like what has just occurred. That is not helpful.

[jamzrockz]

11. Oh yea

France has been causing trouble in Syria and they have been doing it since 2012. These people have bloods on their hands in Syria. Just last week the moderate Syria rebels shot an artillery round into a crowded University campus killing 24 students. Imagine what France would do if the Syrian govt provided militants with the weapons to kill 24 innocent French citizens.

Sorry but Assad is right in his assessment.

[BootinUp]

13. Opinions vary. nt

[leveymg]

12. The earlier ISIS attack in Paris occurred in January.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/were-paris-attacks-the-first-case-of-al-qaeda-and-isis-working-together-six-questions-raised-in-9975349.html

After killing 10 journalists and two police officers, brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi claimed to have been working for the Yemen branch of al-Qaeda – or al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Amedy Coulibaly, who killed four during the takeover of a kosher supermarket in Paris and shot dead a female police officer, claimed in a video that emerged on social media to have pledged his allegiance to Isis, also known as “Islamic State”.

Do the attacks show al-Qaeda and Isis are now working together?

Links between the three gunmen date back to at least 2005, when French court records show Coulibaly and Cherif Kouachi were jailed together.

Officials also believe the Kouachi brothers travelled to Yemen in 2011, and that they may have had links to the former AQAP leader Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in a US drone strike that year.

[KingCharlemagne]

14. Historical Note: France was the major colonial power in Syria before

world War II, hence Daesh's initial acronym 'ISIL,' Syria having constituted a major part of said Levant.

[leveymg]

17. It was France that put the minority Alawite in charge of colonial Administration in Syria

This was the standard model of governance of colonies pursued by both the French and the British. It was a method of "divide and conquer" that would later have the most grave consequences of genocidal ethnic warfare within former colonies when the two empires lost most of their holdings after World War Two. The Arab Spring regime changes unlocked that same genocidal dynamic. France is a major part of that unlocking.

[KingCharlemagne]

18. I really lay the blame for most of the worlds current troubles at the feet

Of the British and French (and us, post World War II). About the only positive colonial legacy I can see is that the Brits left the Indians a tradition of parliamentary democracy, but even that is a mixed blessing.

[leveymg]

19. Sykes-Pichot lines in the sand drawn in 1919. We've been trying to preserve them ever since.

Major continuing mistake.

[KingCharlemagne]

20. tech note: think sykes picot was 1922. but I readily take your point. - nt

[LiberalArkie]

9. I guess Assad is back from his sleepover with Putin.

[KingCharlemagne]

15. Do folks in Arkansas understand that Assad is fighting AGAINST ISIS? And do

the cosmopolites of Little Rock and Fayetteville understand that Putin is Assads's ally in the struggle against ISIS? If not, why not????

[LiberalArkie]

16. I beg forgiveness your grace.

[odd_duck]

21. All of the western countries that .......

have 'air-dropped' or supplied the terrorists that are trying to overthrow Assad are all State Sponsors of terrorism.