To have a photographer, who was seen in the company of terrorist forces, putting up this photo as if he cares about children, we shouldn’t accept it, Sara Flounders, head of International Action Center, told RT.

Mahmoud Raslan, the photographer who snapped the photo of a five year-old boy after he was rescued from the rubble in Syria, has now been accused of fraternizing with terrorist groups in the region.

Back in July, Raslan was spotted by online users posing for a picture with the terrorists that filmed themselves beheading a Palestinian child. The photographer responded to the allegations, claiming that he didn't know the men were part of any specific militant group.

Syrian boy’s image shamelessly exploited for West’s war agenda (Op-Edge by Finian Cunningham) https://t.co/5dWMDl1U9H — RT (@RT_com) 21 августа 2016 г.

RT: Raslan, who took the famous photo of the Aleppo boy, has now himself grabbed the media's attention for a photo he is in.

Sara Flounders: No, I think this photographer absolutely is known on Facebook, on YouTube for continually posting images, pictures applauding the Zinki militia, really a terrorist organization – well known even before this horrendous beheading of a Palestinian-Syrian child. He is not by any stretch of the imagination a human rights activist. He calls himself a ‘media activist’, but his role has been to applaud and support the terrorist activity in Syria.

The media dutifully carry water for their governments in order to present a very unbalanced black and white picture of a very complex war in order to justify the policies of their governments, in this case continuing to support the terrorist groups in Syria. - Jim Jatras, former US diplomat

RT: Not that long ago Arslan on Facebook openly expressed sympathy with an Anti-Assad rebel coalition - Army of Conquest ... The one, which includes the al-Nusra terrorist group... also known for having beheaded children. What do you make of it?

SF: Clearly this photographer, and not only this photographer – the way in which this photo is being used around the world is not [on behalf of] people who have any sympathy for children – this is being used to push for war, to push for increased US- EU bombing of Syria, and again continuing and heightening the efforts of regime change in Syria. The same image of a child wounded, really, we should absolutely say this is one more reason to say ‘NO’ to US war.

The US, Saudi, Israeli, and all the mercenary forces got to get out of Syria. They are the ones who have wrought enormous displacement to the people of Syria, and the death and the injury to so many children. So many children are being traumatized by this war. So to have a photographer, who clearly applauds these terrorist forces, putting up a photo as if he cares about children, we shouldn’t accept it. But regardless of who posted this photo we got to reject the agenda of war.

The Syrian people have a right under international law, under every measure of human rights to defend themselves against the invasion of their country by terrorist forces, who received their funding and their support from the US and also from EU forces, from Saudi and Israeli forces. That is really the true cause of the war – not the Syrian government, which is strictly trying to defend itself and defend its population.

RT: Will the mainstream media change its attitude towards the man who's behind the iconic image of the shell-shocked boy after it's been revealed that he took a photo with supposed child-killers but from the other side of the fence?

SF: Well, the mainstream media has already used this image – front-page coverage, newspapers, TV, social media to the hilt and they care not a whit for truth. They haven’t provided any truth in the past five years – corporate media in the US. They haven’t provided it in one single photo. So will they take on this on this photographer? No, they’ll just go on to the next image and the next media lie to try to justify increased intervention in this war.