Al-Qaida implicated in Syrian conflict

UNITED NATIONS (AP):

Syria's foreign minister claimed yesterday that his government is fighting a war against al-Qaida-linked militants who eat human hearts and dismember people while they are still alive then send their limbs to family members.

Walid al-Moallem, addressing world leaders at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York, also charged that the United States (US), Britain, and France had blocked the naming of the real perpetrators of chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

He claimed "terrorists" fighting the regime in the civil war are being supplied with chemical weapons, but he did not name specific nations accused of supplying them.

President Barack Obama told the UN last week that it was President Bashar Assad's regime that was behind a chemical weapons attack in August that killed hundreds in the Damascus suburbs and brought threats of a US strike.

Syria has committed to getting rid of its stockpiles of chemical weapons and the UN Security Council voted unanimously last Friday to oblige it to do so based on a plan made by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Al-Moallem claimed that it was clear to all that offshoots of al-Qaida, "the most dangerous terrorist organisation in the world", were fighting in the Syrian civil war, but some countries refused to recognise it, he said.

"The scenes of murder, manslaughter, and eating human hearts were shown on TV screens but did not touch blind consciences," al-Moallem said.