'US-led air assault against IS to solve America's economic problem'

The US-led air assault against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is just to "serve the US' own interest" and "solve America's economic problem", a Syrian official said here Thursday.

A Syrian diplomat, who declined to be named, alleged that America "takes money from Saudi Arabia" for every strike against the IS, which have failed to yield any tangible result so far.

Terming the brutal jihadist group Islamic State as a "creation" of the US, the official said the IS "gets support" from Turkey, and described Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan as the "caliph" of the Al Qaeda-inspired group that has beheaded two American journalists and two British nationals so far.

The official, speaking to journalists at the Indian Women's Press Corps here, said that Saudi Arabia has placed a $1 billion order for Lokheed Martin fighter jets, which would help boost the US economy.

He alleged that the Western intelligence apparatus was used to "sabotage Syrian society" and that the CIA, Mossad and MI6 were involved in recruiting youth into the IS by brainwashing them and promising them very good pay packets, of $2,000 a month and if they got killed their families would get $6,000.

The lure of money and the best guns and armaments attracted the wayward youth into joining the ranks of anti-Bashar al-Assad groups, he said.

But when the same groups, including those with many recruits from the West, turned more virulent and began planning to return to their countries of origin, the Western world got alarmed and paid a "secret visit" to the Assad government, he said.

They requested that the Syrian government tackle the groups and prevent them from leaving Syria, the diplomatic official said.

He said that the United Nations is under the "influence" of the US and that it has failed to act against "what America did in Syria".

The diplomatic official said the IS has overrun large parts of Iraq and Syria and has reached the border with Turkey in Kobani, where a massive battle is raging between the Kurds and the jihadists over the city, and asked, "why does the IS not attack Turkey?"

He alleged that the group is "under the control of Erdogan" and gets funds from "Saudi Arabia" and training in Central Asia.

He praised India's stand on Syria where it has said that it is against external influence on Damascus and to let its people decide their future.