U.S. reluctant to destroy ISIS fearing making things easier for Assad - Patrushev
MOSCOW. March 4 (Interfax) - The United States is reluctant to liquidate the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) thinking that this would ease things for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said.
"Regretfully, despite loud statements Washington still resorts to 'double standards' in the fight against terrorism. The U.S. is reluctant to destroy ISIS militants fearing making things easier for al-Assad," Patrushev told journalists on Wednesday in the wake of his visit to Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on March 2-4.
"Russia's position has remained invariable. It is unacceptable to divide terrorists into 'bad' and 'good'. Fights against this evil should be in strict compliance with international law and decisions of the UN Security Council," Patrushev said.
ISIS emerged because of "shortsighted policy of the White House," he said.
"ISIS takes its roots from the times of the West's military intervention in Iraq. It is then when this cell of Al-Qaeda started to form. Later some Sunni groups, as well as former Iraqi officials and officers who went underground, and after the American occupation, joined it," Patrushev said.
"ISIS militants have undergone special training in the territories of countries neighboring Syria in order to overthrow legitimate President al-Assad. The result was the emergence of another terrorist octopus whose distinguishing feature is sophisticated barbarity," he said.
"According to various estimates ISIS controls up to 90,000 square kilometers. The growing zone of militant control in Libya and the beginning of mass executions there are alarming," Patrushev said.
Patrushev also noted that he discussed prospects for joint counteraction to the terrorist threat during his working visits to Egypt and the UAE.
