Syrian rebels to the Eu: Give us arms

The officer of the rebel Free Syrian Army Idriss: “The embargo only hurts the people who cannot defend themselves”

Verhofstadt (Alde): “Cowardly and irresponsible international community. Do something”

The Syrian civil war has made its way to the European Parliament. Yesterday the Alde group (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats) hosted the Brigadier-General of the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA), the main armed opposition group to president Bashar al-Assad. Selim Idriss was a General in the Assad army until last July when he decided to defect and unite with the rebels. Yesterday he asked for help from the EU: “The EU must remove the embargo on arms to our country because this embargo affects only the victims, only the people who don’t have the means to protect themselves, while the regime continues to receive military aid from Iran and Russia.” Idriss declared that at the moment the FSA “asked for help from friends in the EU and USA but didn’t receive arms from anyone. We are using what we obtained in combat or bought on the black market. But we are talking about non-lethal weapons that don’t allow us to resist against Assad’s tanks and airplanes.”

The rebel leader also met the High Representative for EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton and Kristalina Gerogieva, EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response. The western states have direct relations and a certain level of faith in this militia, formed partly by ex-loyals of the Damascus government, considered a “nonreligious” militia, but fear that so overtly allowing the entry of arms into the country they could also reinforce the militia composed of Islamic extremists, like the al-Nusra Front which is on the USA’s international terrorists list. “We do not have direct contact with them – explained Idriss – but we respect them as soldiers, they are on the frontline and have had enormous loss in the conflict. This is a revolution and both sides are facing the same enemy. The al-Nusra Front however is receiving substantially more aid than we are and thus are considered better equipped so many Syrians are joining them. This is another reason we need international support.”

The military wanted to demonstrate its confidence in its army’s ability to the extent that they even guaranteed the European Parliament: “If we were to receive arms we could turn the situation in Syria around in a month’s time. Without arms however, the conflict could last who knows how long; I only know the damages would truly be enormous.” The General, who studied in Germany before becoming a member of the Syrian army, also pointed his finger at Hezbollah: “We do not want to interfere in the politics of other countries, they, on the other hand, demonstrate quite the opposite of neutral; in fact, they are working on the Assad project and said the Syrian conflict could be a fuse to light up the entire region.”

The President of the Alde group, Guy Verhofstadt, supported his requests and accused the international community and the EU of “cowardice and irresponsibility.” According to the Flemish politician, “it is necessary to do something to stop the tragic situation in Syria; there are more than a million refugees in the surrounding countries. Therefore we need to impose a ‘No fly zone’ and furnish arms to the Free Syrian Army to allow them to defend the population from brutal attacks carried out against them every day by the Assad regime.”

Alfonso Bianchi

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