Beirut: Syria said on Monday that it would cooperate in any international efforts to fight Islamic State militants, formerly known as ISIS, in the country, after Washington signalled it was considering extending the battle against the group into Syrian territory. Foreign minister Walid al-Moualem, whose government has been shunned by the West, presented his country as a vital partner in the war against Islamic State that has seized wide areas of Syria and Iraq.
“Syria, geographically and operationally, is the centre of the international coalition to fight Islamic State,” Mr Moualem said. “The United States must come to it if they are serious in combating terrorism," he added. Asked about the prospect of the US’s airstrikes against Islamic State inside Syria, Mr Moualem said his government was ready to cooperate with any country fighting militants. But any air raids mounted without Damascus’s approval would be hostile.
“Anything outside this co-operation would be aggression,” he said. The US earlier signalled that it was considering taking the fight against IS into Syria after days of airstrikes against the group in Iraq. But Washington has also supported a more than three-year-old insurgency against Mr Assad. “He’s part of the problem,” Mr Ben Rhodes, President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said in a broadcast interview. In 2013, Washington came close to bombing Syria after accusing Mr Assad’s forces of using chemical weapons. Islamic State, an offshoot of Al Qaeda, has emerged as the strongest group in the insurgency against Mr Assad.
