Islamic State, Assad Regime Secretly Cooperated for Years: Sky News

London, 5 Rajab 1437/03 May 2016 (MINA) – The Islamic State group and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime have been clandestinely cooperating for years, Sky News reported on Monday.

Leaked files show that IS and the Assad regime coordinated in practical ways, according to Sky News, including a trade deal and an arrangement to evacuate some areas by IS fighters before the Syrian army attacked. The trade agreement in question called for the two sides to trade oil for fertilizer.

They also struck an agreement to withdraw IS weapons from the city of Palmyra, according to Sky News.

The files further revealed that IS has been training fighters to attack the West for much longer than previously suspected, boosting fears of a network of sleeper cells throughout Europe, said Sky.

Sky received the documents from a group of IS defectors it has found reliable in the past.

“Withdraw all heavy artillery and anti-aircraft machine guns from in and around Palmyra to Raqqa province,” one document reportedly read, suggesting that IS directly coordinated with Syrian forces before the latter retook the city after months of occupation.

Some documents purportedly contained orders for a terrorist cell leaving Syria to commit attacks abroad. These files discussed an operation in which groups of fighters would travel across the border and reach “infidel countries”. Documents dated about a month later said groups had reached their “Specialized Areas”, and a defector told Sky that the target of the operation was Europe.

Experts told Sky News that the files exemplify the tangled web of differing interests in Syria. “It may take 20 years before what we know exactly what is going on,” Dr. Afzal Ashraf of the think tank Royal United Services Institute told Sky. “Almost certainly there will be some sort of communication going on between mortal enemies, and that is for short term tactical gains and losses.” (T/R07/R01)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)