Your trusted source

Press TV has conducted an interview with Nabil Mikhail, professor at George Washington University, about a new video showing militants from al-Qaeda-affiliated group al-Nusra Front setting Syrian Kurds on fire.

- We just saw this video of Kurds being burnt to death by these Takfiri militants. These are the very rebel groups that the United States is supporting militarily through funds, directly or indirectly. Why are these pictures setting an example for the US to change their course?

- As far as the situation in Syria and the infiltration of al-Qaeda this is an old story but it has renewed strategic implications.

At this moment United States is offering three initiatives, one towards the Palestinians, another to ease the situation in Egypt with the Muslim Brotherhood and the thirdly the whole effort about Syria.

But the question is that al-Qaeda as it fights in Syria is also targeting the United States because we hear that there has been a closure of nineteen embassies and consulates, American consulates and embassies and because of threats from al-Qaeda.

So here you have to invoke the old adage you physician, heal thyself. There is a threat from al-Qaeda to the United States. That threat actually could emanate from Syria, so it is pretty serious.

The end conclusion is very simple. Obama has to be aware of these serious developments. He has been a little bit hidden from the foreign policy landscape recently. He does not speak much even with the crisis about the embassies we did not hear anything from him.

So he has really to address personally the al-Qaeda threat and at least gives some analysis, some predictions, some explanation as what al-Qaeda is planning in America. If this happens we can understand what al-Qaeda is doing for Syria.

- Professor, speaking of this, this sounds very reminiscent of what happened with regards to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan where the US actually sponsored and supported them and then these weapons were allegedly turned against the US. You would think some of the brilliant, most brilliant minds in US foreign policy and military policy would have figured that out by now?

- Mujahideen is actually different because Mujahideen was a wider regional crisis and the ethnic facts were prominent like say there were the Pashtuns, the Tajiks and others and also it was a very serious phase in the Cold War.

But the challenge from al-Qaeda to America is more of a challenge to America as a unipolar, as an omnipresent superpower, as the sole global power. So this is why the challenge in the case of al-Qaeda to the US is bigger and either a strategic awareness of this here in Washington, I think United States has been surprised by the crisis in Syria and what you are showing in footages are reminder that they have to study the Syrian conflict seriously.

What we are seeing is gradual elimination of funding to the rebels in Syria because we have discovered that some of them have ties to al-Qaeda and others.

So there is no strategy in Washington to face al-Qaeda either in Syria or in any other place on this planet.