Pro-government troops in Syria are fighting well-armed groups of al Qaeda militants, Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoebi said on Monday, Nov 26, according to RIA Novosti.
“At present, the government and its supporters in Syria have to resist al-Qaeda and the Qatar coalition [the recently formed Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces], representing the Muslim Brotherhood of Syria which seeks to reinstate their presence in the Syrian history,” the official SANA news agency, which is currently unavailable, quoted al-Zoebi as saying.
The Muslim Brotherhood of Syria was banned by the secular Baath Party in 1963. In 1982, thousands were killed in a failed uprising by the Brotherhood against then president Hafez al-Assad, the father of incumbent Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
The Assad regime has been locked in a bloody conflict with anti-government rebel forces since March 2011. According to UN estimates, at least 30,000 people have been killed since the violence began.
