ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – People in the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo have put their remaining faith in the hands of Islamic fundamentalist groups due to an overwhelming distrust in Western intervention, CNN correspondent Clarissa Ward testified before the UN Security Council.
“There’s no trust,” Ward testified on Friday. “No trust in the Assad regime, no trust ceasefires or cessation in hostilities, no trust in humanitarian corridors, no trust in the Russians and no trust...in the international community who have been ringing their hands on the sidelines while hospitals and bakeries and schools have been bombed; while phosphorous and cluster bombs have killed countless civilians," she said.
According to Ward, the only ones who have the trust of the citizens of Aleppo are the Islamist groups.
“The only one who arrived on the ground are the Islamist groups even to those who hate fundamentalism because the Islamists are the ones who stepped in to fill the void,” explained Ward, CNN’s correspondent in Syria.
Many Islamist groups have been involved in the fighting in Syria.
Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, recently renamed itself after declaring a split from al-Qaeda in July.
The renamed group now fights alongside more mainstream Islamist factions and battalions, such as the Free Syrian Army, a larger rebel group with forces backed by Western governments.
