Britain’s bombing policy in Syria stokes militancy: Analyst
The UK bombing campaign in Syria has motivated some British citizens to join the militancy in the war-torn country, says an analyst.
“What is the UK doing that’s making the situation worse? And we have to say the first thing they’re doing is they send in bombers. And they’re supplying the bombing carried out by France and the United States,” said Nigel Flanagan, political commentator, in a Sunday interview with Press TV.
The comments follow recent remarks by the UK foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, that a total of 600 UK citizens have been caught trying to enter Syria to join the ISIL and other militant groups since 2012.
Speaking on a visit to southern Turkey on Friday, Hammond said a further 800 UK citizens had managed to enter Syria in the past four years, with half of those believed to still be inside the country.
Now Flanagan believes the UK Syria policy has made the situation worse.
The analyst also blamed “the stigmatizing of Muslims by certain members of the government; by certainly the media in the UK, is making the situation even worse.”
He said, “Although the vast majority of people in the UK oppose the bombing and oppose British government policy in the Middle East, the government is still determined to prove itself a loyal ally of the USA.”
The UK foreign secretary has said British and Turkish intelligence services had worked together to apprehend hundreds of Britons on their way to Syria, stopping some at the UK border and seizing others on planes or trains arriving in Istanbul.
Some had been returned to the UK, while others remained in Turkey for breaching laws on attempting or intending to cross the border into Syria without permission, he added.
Turkey is the main route into Syria for UK extremists, according to the Guardian. Out of the at least 50 British extremists known to have died fighting in Syria, almost all traveled into the country through Turkey.
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