Qatar’s former prime minister, Hamad bin Jassim, has admitted that he helped the United States arm ISIS militants in Syria in order to topple the Assad regime.
In an interview with a Qatari national broadcaster on Thursday, Jassim admitted that Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey sent weapons to ISIS in Syria via US military forces in the region.
Presstv.com reports: “Anything [weapons] that was sent [to Syria] would go through Turkey and was coordinated with the US, and the distribution of anything was via US forces,” the former Qatari premier said.
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Hamad said the four countries only supported those armed groups designated as the moderate Syrian opposition in the West but outlawed by the Syrian government. He admitted that many of the weapons had found their way into the hands of al-Nusra Front, a group allied to al-Qaeda. Hamad rejected similar claims about supporting Daesh, the main Takfiri terrorist group operating in Syria.
‘Saudis now want Assad in power’
Hamad also censured the Saudi regime for revising its policy on Syria by forgetting previous calls for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. He said the Saudis now wanted Assad to stay in power, a stance, he said, Riyadh was not willing to share with others.
“You [Saudi Arabia] are now saying keep Bashar. Ok let him stay, we don’t have any problem, we have no quarrel with him. He was a friend of us … But you [Saudi Arabia] were in the same trench with us, if you changed your mind, tell us so,” Hamad said.
Qatar has been locked in a political standoff with Saudi Arabia and three other Arab countries for the past months. The dispute came apparently after the situation in Syria changed dramatically in favor of government forces and terrorists were purged from key positions across the country.
Syria and Russia, its main military ally, blame the US for continued bloodshed in eastern Syria, saying they have evidence that US forces stationed in Jordan have been providing Daesh, which is losing grounds in the area, with intelligence support.
