Trump with ISIS occupation map
© REUTERS / Carlos BarriaDonald Trump shows maps of Syria and Iraq depicting the size of the "ISIS physical caliphate" in March, 2019.
Despite claiming to fight jihadists in Syria, the Americans are gladly using them to further anti-Damascus policies and occasionally giving them a helping hand, the Syrian foreign minister told RT.

"The Americans are using ISIS as a scarecrow," Minister Walid Muallem said in an interview with RT Arabic. "At the same time they are feeding ISIS, encourage them, protect ISIS leaders and help them move from one area to another."
The US policy is aimed at investing into terrorism.
The Syrian government has long accused the US of fueling groups of foreign Islamist fighters, even those bragging of committing atrocities in Syria, as long as they were willing to fight against the forces loyal to Damascus. Washington claimed its illegal deployment of troops in Syria was aimed at destroying IS, but even after the group was declared defeated the American boots remain on the ground.

The latest public justification coming from the US is that oil in northeastern Syria needs to be "secured" from the defeated jihadists. In practice, the US denies the internationally recognized government of Syria of using the country's national resources.

Muallem also said the US continues its attempts to topple the government he serves with various measures, including by targeting Damascus with economic sanctions. A new round of those is expected after the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) earlier this month.


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Part of the NDAA orders punishment of companies who would help the Syrian government in rebuilding infrastructure and the energy sector - which presumably should not be allowed to happen while President Bashar Assad remains in power.

"All nations that were victimized by this system need to join forces and resist those sanctions," the Syrian official said.