US irked by Syrian request for Russia to fight militants: Analyst

The United States has been making “misleading” statements about Russia, as Washington has been irked by a Syrian request for Moscow to engage terrorist groups in the Arab country, says a political commentator.

"It is Russia, not the US that has been invited by the legal government of the sovereign state of Syria to move against all terrorist groups, not just Daesh,” said Joaquin Flores, a member of the Center for Syncretic Studies.

“And that’s the key here; and that’s why the US’s commentary and its suggestions are so misleading,” he told Press TV on Saturday.

The comments come after an unnamed senior US official told Reuters earlier in the day that only a third of Russian airstrikes in Syria are targeting ISIL and its imprecise attacks are forcing the population to flee, fueling Europe's refugee crisis.

Flores said, "There are a number of areas extremist terrorist groups operating in Syria. Russia moves against them, not based on some abstract hierarchy of most people to least people, but based upon concern of military strategy and reconstruction of the society."

“So, well its possibly true that only a third of Russian airstrikes in Syria are targeting Daesh; the other two-thirds target groups no less problematic than Daesh.”

Russia launched its airstrikes against Takfiri terrorists in Syria at the request of the Damascus government. Moscow says its air raids are meant to weaken Daesh and other terrorist groups that are wreaking havoc in the Arab country.

Reuters also quoted the unnamed official as saying that the Russian airstrikes in Syria “that are not precise cause me great concern because I think there is an indirect correlation to the refugee flow."

Flores, however, went on to say that “this refugee crisis has partly an organic component, being the product of the war. This is not a war that Syria brought against itself, but a war brought to Syria by its foreign enemies. But this refugee crisis was also in part coordinated by the US and the Turkish government.”

At least 4.4 million Syrians fled into neighboring countries from where many are trying to reach Europe. More than one million refugees entered Europe in 2015, according to the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR. Almost 50 percent of them were fleeing war and violence in Syria.

Flores further noted, “Many of these refugees had for a long time been the refugees in neighboring states, and the US coordinated with EU states to stage this massive influx by guaranteeing …suddenly overnight en masse."  

“The Russian campaign started several weeks after they had signaled that it would and so the refugee crisis which was, of course, partly staged, in terms of the allocation of …to refugees en masse, occurred weeks and weeks before the Russian campaign even began. This really exposes what had been planned, and so it is really cynical and really dishonest, when the US claims that it is Russian bombing that it’s fueled the refugee crisis.”

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