ICEJ NEWS REPORTS: Syrian president gives BBC interview
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad gave an interview with the BBC which was broadcast Tuesday and gave some insights into the multi-faceted civil war in Syria. Assad claimed that his regime was cooperating with the US-led coalition battling the Islamic State (IS) terror militia, although he admitted that the coordination was being done through third parties, including the regime in Baghdad. In related news, Queen Rania of Jordan released a video address to the 2015 Arab Government Summit in Dubai on Monday in which she urged the assembled leaders to defeat IS on both the military and ideological battlefield.
Dramatic evidence of the growing influence of IS came on Tuesday in the form of a report in Egyptian media that Welayat Sinai [Supporters of Sinai, formerly Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis) an IS-linked group operating in the Sinai Peninsula, had posted a video online apparently showing the decapitation of 10 men. In the video, the men are accused of being “spies” for Israel and Egyptian security forces.
Click here to watch a video including in-depth discussion of the fight against IS
