America’s Double Face: Syria Militants Trained for Sabotage, Terrorism at US Base

By Staff, Agencies

Again, it’s the double face of the US administration that is under the spotlight.

A US-backed terrorist group has intercepted a convoy of ‘defectors’ seeking to lay down their arms and surrender to Damascus. The survivors told the Syrian Army that American instructors trained them for sabotage and terrorism.

After giving themselves up to the Syrian army, the 27 militants said they had been trained and provided weapons at an American facility, Rear Admiral Oleg Zhuravlev, the head of the Russian Defense Ministry's Center for Syrian Reconciliation, said at a briefing on Wednesday.

American instructors trained them to carry out sabotage at oil and transport infrastructure, as well as for terrorist acts in the Syrian government-controlled territories.

The 27 militants were the sole survivors of the assault, losing three vehicles and a number of men before escaping, Zhuravlev said, noting that they are now under the protection of the Syrian military in Palmyra. They handed over dozens of weapons, including Western-made heavy machine guns and grenade launchers.

Video footage was shared online by local media purporting to show the moment the militants surrendered, in which an eight-vehicle convoy is seen arriving at a Syrian army post near Palmyra. While details of the surrender agreement were not made public, local pro-government media deemed the move a “major blow to the United States.”