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Press TV has conducted an interview with former Pentagon officer Michael Malouf to discuss his views on the current situation in Syria.

Press TV: First of all, the analysis that our guest in London is making is that the [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad government is responsible the spreading terrorism in the country. First of all, your response to that analysis and that he says al-Assad was against talking?

Malouf: First of all, thanks for having me. But Assad was talking to the opposition. It’s my understanding and I have visited Damascus and it was my understanding that even on the second day when hostilities began, there were efforts to talk, but actually government troops were shot at and I think that this is something that then began to percolate even further, when the foreign elements began to come in. I think that this is my understanding too that the government is indeed wanting to talk to the opposition, but they’re not going to talk to foreign fighters and to al-Nusra [Front], which they consider to be...

Press TV: What led to the spreading of the terrorism Mr. Malouf, in your opinion? What led to this majority of militants now, being related to al-Qaeda affiliated groups?

Malouf: Well, I think of it as from the outside. I think there was an opportunity here to gang up, pretty much like what the Russians saw, have seen in Ukraine, and when the West tried to topple that government, the same occurred in Damascus. There was an effort to topple the government. It didn’t go over so easily, and it was also being done at the behest of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia began to flood in the place with, as well as Qatar and Turkey, with foreign fighters. And so now you have the mess that you have today and it resulted in a full-blown civil war.

Press TV: Mr. Malouf, we heard the comments there, the sentiments that are being expressed and a lot of them are of course about the civilian casualties and the plight of the people themselves. Referring back to the points raised by our guest in London, he’s saying that the opposition is not getting support because it has been infiltrated by extremists in the US or other Western powers do not want to give weapons to people that they do not know about, they could be extremists. But there are people who are saying no, that is exactly the case. This covert support is continuing, because there is a force now in the US they say, and in the West to keep the conflict going in Syria. Which side do you agree on?

Malouf: Well, I believe that the US has been supplying arms covertly through Benghazi, [Libya] and what have you. It’s indirect. It’s not direct, simply because the US at first could not determine who the good guys and bad guys were. In fact the Islamic Front that the Saudis wanted the United States to back are indeed members of a lot of al-Nusra affiliates and al-Qaeda affiliates and consequently arms are now flown to them.

The problem is that the United States and through Saudi Arabia and Qatar are supplying arms. In fact, the Saudis just ordered an enormous number of ground, air missiles and anti-tank missiles, leaving their stocks in fact, and then applied to the United States for additional stocks because they know they can’t use US weapons, but they can use the weapons that they have already in stock from the Europeans and those are being shipped to the opposition and to the al-Qaeda affiliates, principally through Turkey and into Syria.

So, the war does go on. There is continued arming and in fact that’s what Benghazi was about. It was a secret CIA station there to collect the arms in order to send in to Syria. And this is something that is going to come out in investigation very shortly.

Press TV: First of all, two points to rise here. I’d like to have your response. First, that our guest in London saying that President Assad is responsible for destroying the country and the massacre of his own people during the civil war. Your response first of all to that, and also and to the fact that is he or the current government responsible for the failure of talks?

Malouf: First of all, while I was there, I was briefed on precisely what a-Nusra Front has been doing and they have purposely been seeking to destroy infrastructure.

They were going around destroying hospitals, roads, bridges, and even the opposition people, a number of whom I spoke to were giving up their arms and saying this is not what we wanted. We did not want to have our infrastructure destroyed and they actually began to leave al-Nusra Front and a lot of the affiliates and actually some of them were killed because they weren’t radical enough and that concerned them. So, they went back and rejoined the government, as a consequence even though they remained opposition, but they were no longer bearing arms against the government.

I saw for a fact that al-Nusra was out destroying hospitals and ambulances, bridges, roads, and the reason for this is that they really wanted to destroy the entire country as part of an ultimate plan that Saudi Arabia has had and that is to oust that government of Bashar al-Assad and this is where this battle is not just about al-Assad.

It is a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran and what’s intriguing is that Turkey, even for assisting al-Nusra, is actually quietly working with Iran now, because they see that Saudi Arabia’s radicalism through its Wahhabism is something that they are also concerned about and they’re looking at the long-run and I think that you are going to see Turkey coming around and becoming a little more concerned about al-Nusra’s presence, even in Turkey and in fact there have been raids inside of Turkey by al-Nusra and so this is like creating this monster and then having it attack you. Pretty much what al-Qaeda did after our support of it in Afghanistan in 1979.

Press TV: Mr. Malouf, if you can, in under 30 seconds. Our guest there was also concluding earlier that Saudi Arabia and the West are actually trying to withdraw now from the area. Do you think however, that in fact, they are increasing their support as you say, covert support? Do you think this is going to a protracted war.

Malouf: Oh sure. I think they have continued to support al-Nusra. They’re just doing it under a different guise. They just created the Islamic Front and they’re supposed to be a little more moderate than al-Qaeda, but the monster is out there. The concern is that they just don’t come back to Saudi Arabia and start attacking the Saudis. That’s one thing they will not tolerate.