British Prime Minister David Cameron has said that he wants to make sure Syrian President Bashar al-Assad goes after Britain announced it would step up support for Syrian insurgents.
In an interview with Channel 5, Cameron said “we need to make sure Assad goes” as he admitted that British officials “are working very closely” with armed insurgents in Syria as they are “getting to know them better”.
Cameron’s remarks about UK officials’ efforts to know Syria’s armed rebels better come as a report published by the Daily Mail on 20 July, 2012 suggested that UK officials already know the insurgents well because the leaders of these armed insurgents were trained by Britain’s former Special Air Service (SAS) soldiers.
Despite this revelation by the
Daily Mail and an earlier revelation by the Israeli military intelligence website
DEBKAfile in February 2012 that Britain had established centers of operation in the Syrian city of Homs, British Foreign Secretary William Hague claims Britain’s support for Syrian insurgents is “non-lethal”.
Hague’s claim came on Friday 10 August after he announced that Britain would provide Syria’s armed insurgents with an additional £5 million.
Furthermore, Hague said that Britain was seeking to establish relationships with groupings opposed to the Syrian President in order to find itself a place in the Syrian politics now that Cameron says he wants to “make sure Assad goes”.
ISH/MA/HE
