Paris attacks: Syrian rebel groups condemn atrocity

Dozens of Syrian rebel groups strongly denounced the Islamic State jihadist group’s attacks on Paris as ‘against human values’.

Dozens of Syrian rebel groups strongly denounced the Islamic State jihadist group’s attacks on Paris as “against human values” in a joint online statement.

Leaders of Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad all issued statements denouncing the terror ­attacks.

And Syrian activists, refugees, and civilians in the war-torn country expressed their solidarity with France in posts on social media.

A total of 49 armed factions in Syria, including the powerful Jaish al-Islam rebel groups, condemned “in the strongest terms” Islamic State’s co-ordinated assault.

“We learned today, with great shock and condemnation, about the terrorist attacks against civilians in the city of Paris,” the joint statement said.

It called Islamic State’s actions “criminal attacks that are against (Islamic) laws and human values”.

Most rebel groups in Syria fiercely oppose the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and ­Islamic State, which has declared a self-styled “caliphate” in parts of Syria and Iraq.

“This terrorism does not differ from the terrorism that the Syrian people have suffered from every day for the past five years,” the groups said. They pledged to continue to “fight terrorism” and urged the international community to ­address the root cause of extremism in Syria.

“The real victim of the continuation of the Assad regime and its terrorist organisations is the whole world, not just the Syrian people.”

Condemning what he called “blind terrorism”, Hezbollah secretary-general Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech that “our people in this region know very well this terrorism the Islamic State has carried out in the French capital.

“The Islamic State will not last long ... they know that they will not last,” Nasrallah said.

Noting the recent double suicide attack that killed 43 in a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs, he stressed such attacks would only increase the organisation’s determination to fight the jihadist movement in Syria.

Hezbollah has assisted Assad in that country’s civil war.

In Gaza, Hamas official Bassem Na’eem said Hamas “strongly condemned the series of attacks and hostile actions that were carried out in Paris”.

“We pay our deep condolences to the families of the victims and we wish to France safety and ­security,” he said.

Nafez Azzam, a senior Islamic Jihad official, also condemned the attacks. “I don’t think Islam is ­allowing this haphazard and arbitrary killing,” he said.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad were responsible for a ­series of suicide bombings that killed hundreds of Israelis in the past.

Syrians expressed solidarity with the people of Paris online.

Activists from the northwest province of Idlib and from the Islamic State-held city of Raqqa overlaid their profile pictures on social media accounts with the French flag. Residents of Douma, a rebel-held town east of Damascus frequently bombarded by Syria’s regime, wrote an open letter saying, “We express our warm condolences to the French families who lost loved ones”.

AFP