Le Figaro Senior Correspondent: ‘Our Enemy Is Terrorism, not Syrian State That Fights It’
The French Le Figaro newspaper’s senior correspondent Renaud Girard has underscored that destabilizing the situation in Syria will lead to further chaos and spread of terrorism all over the world.
He called for not repeating in Syria what happened during the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Girard, who recently wrote a book entitled ‘ Le Monde en Gurre” [the World at War], said that the Syrian state is fighting terrorists affiliated to al-Qaeda which perpetrated dozens of terror attacks in the world.
“Our enemy is terrorism, not the Syrian state that fights it,” he affirmed, according to Tishreen newspaper.
As for the situation in Aleppo city, the senior correspondent asserted that terrorists hold civilians hostage and use them as human shields and this necessitates offering help to them and not to terrorists.
“Syrian state’s success in cleaning up Aleppo city from terrorists will be a great victory,” Girard said.
He mocked the hypocrisy of France manifested in supporting the fight against terrorism in Mali while supporting terrorism in Syria.
“Terrorists affiliated to al-Nusra Front [Jabhat al-Nusra] destroyed churches in Maaloula town outside Damascus and killed a lot of innocent civilians there in 2013. They also attacked Adra city in Damascus countryside in the same year and killed a lot of civilians,” the French correspondent clarified.
He criticized Gulf states, mainly Qatar and Saudi Arabia, for supporting terrorist organizations .
“It is ironic that the Qatari al-Jazeera TV channel talks about moral values in Syria, but ignores what is happening in Bahrain,” the French journalist said.
Girard criticized the Saudi destructive role in Yemen, stressing that the West has realized the need to reconsider relations with Saudi Arabia which is supporting terrorism in the world.
“France must play a positive role in the region, especially in Syria. It must be an honest mediator because it has adopted aggressive policy towards Syria over the past years,” he concluded.
Basma Qaddour