MOSCOW (Sputnik), Svetlana Alexandrova — Earlier in the day, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said ground forces represented by the Free Syrian Army, the Kurds and troops from the Syrian regime were needed along with airstrikes in order to defeat the ISIL terrorists.
"I do not know why the West continues to discover new names and definitions for so-called different sectorial groups in Syria. There is no Free Syrian Army anymore. Thousands of them have joined Al-Nusra and ISIL and Al-Fatah groups," Tarek Ahmad said.
Ahmad added that there were currently 1,700 different opposition groups in Syria that were not of Syrian origin, but came to Syria from abroad.
Syria has been in a state of civil war since 2011, with government forces countering the so-called moderate rebels and several extremist groups, including the Islamic State and the al-Nusra Front.
Unlike Russia, the West, primarily the United States and its European allies, does not see President Bashar Assad as the country's legitimate leader, and support the Syrian opposition which aims to oust the president.
