Syrian President Assad Blames The West For Rise Of Islamic State

The Obama administration remains leery of Putin’s eagerness to form a grand military coalition, to include intelligence-sharing, against the Islamic State.

The US was pushing to keep Syria’s peace process alive, saying President Bashar al-Assad’s future will be decided in the coming weeks, after the embattled leader rejected an ambitious timetable to cede power.

Mr Obama’s comments come days after meeting Mr Assad’s top backer, Russian President Vladimir Putin, which appeared to see the two sides edge closer to an agreement.

Russia’s high-intensity air campaign and Putin’s influence over Assad gives the Russian Federation a key role in diplomatic efforts to negotiate a political solution.

The Islamic State group only exists thanks to “the support of the Turks and the Saudis and Qatari, and of course the western policy that supported the terrorists in different ways”, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in a new interview.

However, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Paris last week, which left more than 130 French citizens dead and hundreds more wounded, the relationship between Russian Federation and the West has become more complicated.

But Putin later said the matter must be decided by the Syrians as part of that process.

The bombing raid, one of the largest by Moscow since the Soviet war in Afghanistan, marked an impressive turnaround for Putin, who has positioned himself as an indispensable piece of the puzzle in the fight against ISIS in Syria after more than a year of being isolated by the worldwide community.

In a speech after a seven-hour police siege linked to last week’s attacks in Paris, Hollande vowed to work with allies to destroy the Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for bomb and gun attacks.

But when he meets with Putin, they say, they hope his pitch will be for Moscow to help quickly settle the Syrian civil war so that they all can turn their full attention to the extremists.

According to the official, the decision of Russian Federation and France on cooperation in Syria indicates that sober-minded politicians realize that it is necessary to put aside minor things and focus on confronting the Islamic State.

The Syrian leader has lost much of the country to the ISIS and other groups in the four-year war; half the population has been displaced, many areas have been levelled, and masses of refugees are flooding Europe.

France agrees with Obama that Assad’s continuance in power and the war against his own people have provided fertile territory for terrorists.

The admission was accompanied by an announcement that Russian Federation would dramatically step up its attacks on ISIS in Syria.

“Thus far what we have done is simply deconflict some of our military operations” rather than coordinate military strikes with the Russians, Rhodes said.

Information for this article was contributed by Vladimir Isachenkov, Josh Lederman, Kathleen Hennessey, Karl Ritter, Sylvie Corbet and staff members of The Associated Press and by Eddie Buckle of Bloomberg News.