Syria on the brink? Rubio warns of ‘full-scale civil war of epic proportions’
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Syria’s transitional government facing potential collapse, more war, and ‘country splitting up’
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Tuesday that Syria could be weeks away from a fresh civil war of “epic proportions”, as he called for support to the transitional leadership.
The top American diplomat blamed a resurgence of Islamic State in areas outside the transitional government’s control, as well as Iran.
He told a US Senate hearing that the government, “given the challenges they’re facing, are maybe weeks – not many months – away from potential collapse and a full-scale civil war of epic proportions, basically the country splitting up”.
Rubio spoke after a series of bloody attacks on the Alawite and Druze minorities in Syria, where Islamist-led fighters in December toppled then-president Bashar al-Assad, capping a brutal civil war that began in 2011.
US President Donald Trump last week on a visit to Saudi Arabia announced a lifting of Assad-era sanctions and met with the guerilla leader who is now Syria’s transitional president, Ahmed al-Sharaa.