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Press TV talks with Michel Chossudovsky, from the Center for Research on Globalization from Montreal, regarding the figures released by Foreign Policy magazine about the number of foreign militants fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria.

- Some alarming figures are coming through based on this report by Foreign Policy magazine which I am sure you are aware of at this point.

But tell us how is this going to then as a consequence affect the countries of the region of which these people are nationals of such as Europe?

- First of all, let me say that the Foreign Policy magazine, its figures are taken out of the blue. They have absolutely no evidence as to the statements which are made.

If they are compared to Afghanistan, there were a hundred thousand foreign fighters recruited by the CIA. They were al-Qaeda affiliated foreign fighters.

That report in Foreign Policy magazine has no authorities by an independent researcher based in Norway. What I can say is that the numbers of mercenaries and foreign fighters in Syria over nearly a three-year period has been substantial but it is impossible to establish the numbers because first of all, these mercenaries are arrested, some are killed and what is now disturbing is that these foreign supported mercenaries are coming in with new recruits.

In other words, these foreign fighters which are supported by the Western military alliance and we have ample documentation to that effect. They are supported by NATO; they are supported by Israel, by Turkey, by Qatar, by Saudi Arabia; they are trained in Saudi Arabia and overriding this process is of course the US intelligence which is behind this process.

So we are not dealing with a protest movement; we are dealing with criminal insurrection whereby these mercenaries trained in Saudi Arabia, in Qatar and then led into Syria; they commit atrocities and then these atrocities are blamed on the government.

…I fully concur with the statements of the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, I would add that to resolve and end this war, would require that the Western military alliance cease to support the terrorists, very simple.

If no mercenaries are recruited and sent into Syria, the war is over because essentially the Syrian armed forces have managed to pacify pretty much all major sectors of the country so far and why is the war continuing because more mercenaries are being recruited. Some of these mercenaries in fact are prisoners in Saudi Arabia; they are criminals and then they are indoctrinated.

This is not a “Jihadist” movement. It has the label of a “Jihadist” movement but it is not. It is simply the recruitment of people who are sent in and given instructions as to their mandate which is essentially to kill civilians and we have seen this happening and we have seen the various operations which have resulted in countless civilian deaths and atrocities.