{"id":2061,"date":"2017-12-04T06:54:07","date_gmt":"2017-12-04T07:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madaresharghi.com\/uk-halts-syria-aid-program-amid-reports-that-it-funds-terrorists\/"},"modified":"2017-12-04T06:54:07","modified_gmt":"2017-12-04T07:54:07","slug":"uk-halts-syria-aid-program-amid-reports-that-it-funds-terrorists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/uk-halts-syria-aid-program-amid-reports-that-it-funds-terrorists\/","title":{"rendered":"UK halts Syria aid program amid reports that it funds terrorists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/madaresharghi..com\">madaresharghi<\/a><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p><h2 class=\"lide\">The UK government has suspended a Syrian aid program to investigate reports that the money is ending up in the wrong hands.<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<div readability=\"100\">\n<p>\n\tA government spokesperson broke the news on Sunday, hours after a BBC investigation revealed that the cash used to form an unarmed police force in militant-held areas was being diverted to extremist groups, presstv.com reported.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tAccording to the report, officers from the force, known as the Free Syrian Police (FSP), have been caught cooperating with militant groups. This contravenes the force\u2019s main obligation, which was supposed to be an unarmed civilian police force.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe government spokesman said Prime Minister Theresa May and her team took the allegations \u2018extremely seriously.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\n\t&#8220;We take any allegations of co-operation with terrorist groups and of human rights abuses extremely seriously and the Foreign Office has suspended this program while we investigate these allegations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe FSP officers are accused of handing over funds they had received in cash to an extremist group controlling the area.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tMillions of British pounds in Syria may have ended up in Daesh hands, a report said.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tSuch cases were prevalent in Aleppo province, where officers paid at least 20 percent of their salaries to the Nour al-Din al-Zinki group, which controlled the area.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe UK-backed officers had helped the group \u2018by writing up warrants, delivering notices, and turning criminals over to the court.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe BBC report alleged that extremist groups handpicked some FSP officers while dead and fictitious people were included on the police payroll in some areas.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tCiting ASI\u2019s own documents, the report stated that the organization\u2019s staff were unable to find any officers during a 2016 visit of a police station in Idlib province, where 57 officers were expected to operate from.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThere was also evidence that some of the officers had been appointed by the Jabhat Fatah al-Sham \u2013 previously known as the Nusra Front \u2013 terrorist group.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tAdam Smith International (ASI), the organization that has been running the project since October 2014, said it \u2018strongly refutes\u2019 the allegations.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t&#8220;We have managed taxpayers&#8217; money effectively to confront terrorism, bring security to Syrian communities and mitigate the considerable risks of operating in a war zone,&#8221; the government spokesman said.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t&#8220;ASI has managed the project successfully alongside our partner in an extremely challenging, high-risk environment under the close supervision of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and five other governments,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tUK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said in April that the UK was going to set aside \u00a34 million more to fund the UK-run Access to Justice and Community Security (AJACS) scheme that includes the FSP.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>madaresharghi The UK government has suspended a Syrian aid program to investigate reports that the money is ending up in the wrong hands. A government spokesperson broke the news on Sunday, hours after a BBC investigation revealed that the cash used to form an unarmed police force in militant-held areas was being diverted to extremist [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[296,118,28,31,159,639,178,56,213,84,95,82,68,22,23,27],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v15.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>UK halts Syria aid program amid reports that it funds terrorists - madaresharghi | An Analytical Look at Middle Eastern Developments<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/uk-halts-syria-aid-program-amid-reports-that-it-funds-terrorists\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UK halts Syria aid program amid reports that it funds terrorists - madaresharghi | An Analytical Look at Middle Eastern Developments\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"madaresharghi The UK government has suspended a Syrian aid program to investigate reports that the money is ending up in the wrong hands. A government spokesperson broke the news on Sunday, hours after a BBC investigation revealed that the cash used to form an unarmed police force in militant-held areas was being diverted to extremist [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/uk-halts-syria-aid-program-amid-reports-that-it-funds-terrorists\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"madaresharghi | An Analytical Look at Middle Eastern Developments\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-12-04T07:54:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\">\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/\",\"name\":\"madaresharghi | An Analytical Look at Middle Eastern Developments\",\"description\":\"madaresharghi | An Analytical Look at Middle Eastern Developments\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/uk-halts-syria-aid-program-amid-reports-that-it-funds-terrorists\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/uk-halts-syria-aid-program-amid-reports-that-it-funds-terrorists\/\",\"name\":\"UK halts Syria aid program amid reports that it funds terrorists - madaresharghi | An Analytical Look at Middle Eastern Developments\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2017-12-04T07:54:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-12-04T07:54:07+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/c52e345120843d5f259215c4e809cdd2\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/uk-halts-syria-aid-program-amid-reports-that-it-funds-terrorists\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/c52e345120843d5f259215c4e809cdd2\",\"name\":\"administrator\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/901309319175b0d219e688b01909d220?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"administrator\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}