Syria’s mufti warns Arab states against arming terrorists

Syria's Grand Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun warned certain Arab states against arming terrorists in Syria, saying his country’s ongoing crisis would spread to the other regional nations if President Bashar al-Assad’s government falls. “If Syria collapses, the war will spread to the Persian Gulf littoral states, and countries like Jordan, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia will not survive,” Panorama al-Sharq al-Awsat news website quoted Sheikh Hassoun as saying. He underlined that if the Syrian government falls, other Arab countries of the region will also follow suit. “The rulers of Muslim and Arab countries should have come to Syria and prevented the spread of the flames of war, but they began arming a group of people for killing another group, instead,” Sheikh Hassoun added. Some Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are main supporters of the Syrian opposition trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad’s government by arming the terrorists. Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011 with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border guards being reported across the country. Hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed, when some protest rallies turned into armed clashes. The government blames outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups for the deaths, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad. In October 2011, calm was almost restored in the Arab state after President Bashar al-Assad started a reform initiative in the country, but Israel, the US, its Arab allies and Turkey sought hard to bring the country into chaos through any possible means. Tel Aviv, Washington and some Arab capitals have been staging various plots to topple President Assad, who is well known in the world for his anti-Israeli stances.