Defense Minister Lieutenant General Hossein Dehqan warned of plots hatched by the US and its allies to partition regional states to serve the Israeli regime's interests in the Middle East. "Creation and expansion of terrorism and extremism are merely aimed at safeguarding the Zionist regime [of Israel] and maintaining instability in the region," Dehqan said on Wednesday, Tasnim News Agency reported. He called on the US and its allies to stop throwing their weight behind terrorist groups in the region, noting that Washington is seeking to break up regional states, Syria and Iraq in particular, through "its sinister schemes". "The US is not sincere in its fight against the terror groups in Syria," the defense chief said, adding that by backing the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham terror group (formerly known as al-Nusra Front), Washington is attempting to disrupt the Damascus government's anti-terror fight and guarantee the terrorists' survival. The conflict in Syria, which flared up in March 2011, has claimed the lives of more than 400,000 people, according to an estimate by UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura.
