West planning to use former ISIS militants against Iran – FSB chief

The jihadists are being moved from prisons in Syria to special camps in neighbouring Iraq, Aleksandr Bortnikov has said.

Western spy agencies are intending to use Syrian militants as a proxy force against Iran, Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) chief Aleksandr Bortnikov has said.

The jihadists, who fought for Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) and other terrorist groups, are being moved from their detention facilities in Syria to special camps in Iraq, Bortnikov said during a meeting of the security chiefs from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in Russia’s Irkutsk Region on Tuesday.

“The history of Islamic State began with similar Iraqi prison complexes under the protection of Western coalition intelligence agencies,” he stressed.

The CIS was established in 1991, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, to promote economic, political and security cooperation between members. It currently includes nine nations: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Moldova, and Uzbekistan.

The actions of Western spy agencies also pose a danger to the members of the organization as the released militants, “include individuals from CIS countries who fought in the Islamic State and other terrorist groups and later ended up in Syrian prisons,” Bortnikov warned. They can be used not only across the Middle East, but also in their home countries, he added.

“Undoubtedly, the escalation of the Iranian conflict and the involvement of an increasing number of parties in it is threatening to destabilize the entire Islamic world,” the FSB chief stressed.

Indirect negotiations are currently ongoing between the US and Iran amid a fragile truce, which was established in early April after a month of intense hostilities initiated by the Americans and the Israelis. Meanwhile, Tehran continues to prevent the ships of Washington’s allies from sailing through the Strait of Hormuz, which accounts for some 25% of the global crude oil trade, while the US maintains its own blockade of Iranian ports.

On Monday, Iran’s top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reportedly arrived in Doha for talks with Qatar’s prime minister on a potential peace deal with the US.

However, both sides downplayed hopes of a swift breakthrough, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying that Washington was willing to give diplomacy a chance before deciding whether to deal with Iran in “another way.”

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday that the fact that the sides were able to reach common ground on some issue “does not mean that the signing of an agreement is imminent.”