Putin: Do not arm ‘organ-eating’ Syrian rebels

Russian president Vladimir Putin questioned yesterday why the West would want to arm Syrian rebels who he said ate human organs.

Putin — speaking at a news conference after meeting British prime minister David Cameron in London ahead of today’s G8 summit — said the Syrian government and Syrian rebels were to blame for the bloodshed.

“You will not deny that one does not really need to support the people who not only kill their enemies, but open up their bodies, eat their intestines in front of the public and cameras. Are these the people you want to support?”

“Is it them who you want to supply with weapons? Then this probably has little relation to humanitarian values that have been preached in Europe for hundreds of years.”

Meanwhile, Syria yesterday said Egypt’s decision to cut diplomatic ties with the country is “irresponsible”, accusing its president of fuelling sectarian conflict and serving a US-Israeli conspiracy to divide the Middle East.

The official government statement came a day after Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s president, told supporters in Cairo that his country is severing ties with Damascus and closing its embassy in the Syrian capital.

Morsi made the decision as calls proliferate from hardline Sunni clerics in Egypt and the region to launch a “holy war” against the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

Morsi also called for a UN endorsed no-fly zone over Syria.

The Syrian statement said Morsi is supporting an idea that would violate its sovereignty, and is “serving the goals of Israel and the United States”.

The statement added that Morsi doesn’t reflect the views of Egyptians, who have longstanding ties with the Syrian people and who have fought alongside them against Israel in the past.

The statement taunted Morsi for cutting ties with Syria but maintaining them with Israel despite its treatment of the Palestinians and recent airstrikes inside Syria. That policy “exposes the real identity of Morsi and his group”, it said.

Morsi’s move on Saturday comes as the conflict in Syria is increasingly taking sectarian overtones. The fighting pits Assad’s regime — dominated by a Shi’ite offshoot and supported by Shi’ite Iran and Lebanon’s Shi’ite Hezbollah guerrillas — against mostly Sunni rebel fighters backed by Sunni Gulf regimes.

Hardline Sunni clerics have called on able-bodied young men to join Syrian rebels in their fight against Assad’s regime, and blasted Hezbollah for taking part in the fighting.

Morsi called on Hezbollah to get out of Syria.