"We (Syria) are a country with a free will.There is no one to decide for us," said Dr Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun, Grand Mufti of Syria

Accusing America, France, Turkey and Saudi Arabia of lobbying against Syrian interests in the Geneva peace talks, Syria’s Grand Mufti Dr Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun in an exclusive interview with India Today said the ISIS, or Daesh as it has come to be called, were killing people for money at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

While the leader extolled India for its secular polity, he also pointed that Syria was being targeted as it was “much like the Indian republic.”

"The only country in the Arab region which has 25 different sects” and the “first secular country in the Middle East”.

Hassoun, whose son was among those killed by the Daesh, also claimed that Syria was “not fighting ISIS as the terror group had been spawned off from several countries.

“We are fighting against 100 different countries. I would like you to know where the Daesh is. It is in Torabora and Pakistan. They have trained them and were supporting them and gave them all facilities. And they have set them free,” said the Grand Mufti.

“They are manufactured by the USA in Afghanistan and the Taliban is one part of them. There is the Saudi school of thinking, which is spreading throughout the world in the name of Islam, which is the main power that directs them where to go and how to move,” claimed Hassoun.

Hassoun suggested that war in Syria was neither a “regime problem” nor a “sectarian or religious problem”, rather it was just “power struggle in the Middle East”.

Non-aligned

“Syria always refused to be with one side engaged with the other. The prime minister of Turkey has visited Syria five times just to convince Syrian leadership to allow parties to be based on religious thinking to exist in Syria, but our leadership has always refused this.

The prince of Qatar came and he told us ‘You have to find the way, you have to go to the American interests; you have to do the American interests’.

We have always refused. We were always with Jawaharlal Nehru’s way and that of Indira Gandhi- to be with the non-aligned movement; to make peace in the Middle East region as India is doing now,” the Grand Mufti said.

Himself a victim of ISIS, Hassoun said he had pardoned the killers of his son.

“The atomic energy scientist, technological scientist and of course the religious scholars were attacked in Syria and one of them was my own son. I met the person who has committed this crime and asked him: ‘Why did you target my son, he has not raised weapon against you, we are part of you, we are one of you’.

He said: “We got an order, a direct order from Saudi Arabia, from Turkey to attack either Hazarat Mufti himself or one of his family or his son, and they paid us individually $1,000 each.”

Hails Indians

Hassoun lauded Indians to have proved themselves in all walks of life in foreign countries, he also advised the country not to be “misused” by the West.

“That's why I came to India to tell the Indian people that you are a wonderful people. The Indian people in Europe, in USA are proving themselves to be a very intellectual and intelligent people. Don’t let the West misuse India to make it a poorer country. Take care of your own country,” he said.

Speaking on the Paris attacks, the Grand Mufti of Syria said the international agencies claimed that there were Syrians among the attackers but after investigations it turned out that they were Belgian and French.

“They were born in Belgium and France but they studied in Saudi Arabia. That’s why I asked Indian brothers to pay attention. Gandhi made this a land of peace and they must not to tear it apart. I will always support the Gandhian way of life.”

Asked about the ongoing peace talks, Hassoun said: “We are a country with a free will. There is no one to decide for us. We are independent, sovereign country. We decide for ourselves. After a five years of war, the UN, three months back, agreed that the final world with this problem is the Syrian people's vote, but the ambition of Syrian people should be executed. Don't you see what they have done in Somalia, Libya, Iraq and Yemen?