al nusra fighters
© AFP 2016/ Fadi al-Halabi / AMC
There are reasons to believe that Washington might be protecting al-Nusra Front terrorists in order to use them as a tool to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a joint press conference with Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic in Belgrade on Monday.

"There is a slew of examples showing that al-Nusra Front somehow evaded the US-led coalition's actions. There were and are solid reasons to believe it was being protected as the most efficient and combat-capable anti-government force on the ground so that it could be used in future to topple the legitimate leadership of Syria," Lavrov said.

Syria has been in a state of civil war since 2011, with government forces fighting the Syrian opposition groups striving to overthrow Bashar Assad. Damascus is also fighting numerous extremist and terrorist groups such as the Jabhat Fatah al Sham (previously known as al-Nusra Front) and Daesh, both outlawed in the United States and Russia. According to the United Nations, 300,000 Syrians have died since the beginning of the conflict.