U.S. using Salafis as tools to destabilize Syria

TEHRAN, Jan.10 (MNA) -- The Syrian opposition is comprised of five major groups with varying amounts of influence over what is happening in the country. The Kurds are the largest opposition group in terms of numbers. Since the beginning of the unrest in Syria in March 2011, most Kurds, who did not have Syrian citizenship and identification documents, availed themselves of the opportunity that arose to obtain citizenship. Another segment of the country’s Kurdish community stepped up their efforts to attain the right to speak Kurdish and educate their children in schools using their mother tongue. And they finally managed to convince the Syrian government to grant them these concessions. The Kurds are currently waiting to see how things pan out and are not actively participating in the attacks against the people and the government in Syria. The Muslim Brotherhood is the second major bloc of the Syrian opposition. The group is less sophisticated in terms of organization and has less political influence than the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt. Under the influence of Saudi Arabia, the Muslim Brotherhood engaged in a massive confrontation with former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad in 1982, which seriously undermined the group’s position in the country. After Bashar al-Assad supported the Palestinians during the December 2008-January 2009 Gaza war, the group decided to decrease the level of its hostility toward the Syrian government. Thus, over the past 10 months, the Muslim Brotherhood has not played a major role in the crisis. The third important group is the Federation of Tenseekiet Syrian Revolution, which has a much smaller base of support in the country. After the younger Assad came to power in 2000, the group acquired more freedom to conduct activities and adopted a wise approach in dealing with the social and political problems of the country. The fourth component of the opposition is mainly comprised of people and politicians who actually have no popular base in Syria. They are mostly backed by the Western powers, and they have also formed a council to continue their struggle. The fifth segment of the opposition is a group of adherents of the Salafi sect. They are directly sponsored by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, both of which have played a major role in fueling the crisis in the country over the past 10 months. The followers of the Salafi sect have adopted the most violent methods to realize their objectives, and they are the main factor behind the terrorism and bloodshed in the country. From the very beginning of the unrest in Syria, Western governments continuously intensified their efforts to increase the bloodshed and spark a civil war. The best tool to implement such a policy in the current situation is the extremist Salafi group. Even after the Arab League’s special monitors released their first report on the unrest, the group continued to put pressure on the government through suicide bombings, which have left dozens of Syrians dead and injured over the past few days. Paradoxically, the Arab governments that have dispatched representatives to monitor the situation in Syria actually have terrible records in terms of human rights and political liberty in their own countries. This hypocrisy shows that instigating a civil war in Syria is the real goal of these countries. The recent wave of suicide bombings in Damascus is a clear illustration of this policy, which is directly sponsored by the United States and is being implemented by the Salafis. The instigation of sectarian strife and factional conflicts is the main U.S. policy in countries experiencing unrest. In other words, whenever its political plots reach an impasse, the U.S. starts supporting gangs and thugs to create violence. The same strategy was pursued in Iraq, where the U.S. repeatedly resorted to violence from 2003 to 2011 and over a million people lost their lives, only because the U.S. was unable to realize its nefarious designs.