Syrian Army is Only Secular Force Fighting Terrorists, Despite US Hostility

The public in the US and Britain is being misled about the nature of threat in Syria, where only Syrian government forces are capable of defeating the terrorist threat, but need more outside help, Politics First editor Marcus Papadopoulos told Sputnik.

The US has denied that its airstrike was responsible for the deaths of three Syrian army soldiers after an army base in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor was hit on Sunday, but its denial must be viewed skeptically, taking into account US officials' propensity to tell big lies about their military campaigns, Marcus Papadopoulos of Politics First Magazine told Sputnik. 

​"We can go back to the wars in the former Yugoslavia, where American officials alleged that for example in Kosovo half a million Albanians had been murdered by the Serbs, and then it was 100,000. If we move on a few years to Iraq, American officials lied about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction."

Rather than attacking the Syrian army, the US-led coalition should be assisting it in the fight against radical Islamism, said Papadopoulos.

"The Syrian army is representative of the Syrian state, so it is secular, it is multicultural, it is multiethnic, it is comprised of Sunnis, Shia, Jews, Armenians, Christians, and of course they are fighting ISIS (Daesh) and all other Islamist terrorist groups in Syria 24/7."

Papadopoulos, editor and publisher of the UK-based Politics First Magazine, said that consumers of news in the West are unfortunately often unaware of the importance of Syrian government forces to defeating the terrorist threat.

"The sad thing is that the average person in the West, be it in America, or in Britain, they're not aware that the Syrian army is actually their ally. If you watch BBC News for example, or Sky News, or CNN, their reporters will talk about the Kurds fighting ISIS (Daesh)."

"Well, they're correct, the Kurds are fighting ISIS. But only in the north, and they're not the most potent threat to ISIS (Daesh). The most potent, the most formidable threat to ISIS (Daesh) is the Syrian army, and they are fighting ISIS (Daesh) and other Islamist terrorist groups 24/7 across the whole of Syria. "

"That is why the Syrian army is absolutely crucial in terms of destroying Islamist terrorism in Syria, and that is only a good thing for world peace, world stability and world security."

"Domestic audiences in Britain and America are being told that President Assad is a murderer, the Syrian army are murderers, the only allies are the Kurds, and the groups that the Americans and the British are supporting are 'moderates,' which is a complete and utter lie."