Press TV has conducted an interview with Michel Chossudovsky, Centre for Research on Globalization (www.globalresearch.ca) from Montreal about Britain’s recent announcement that the al-Nusra Front group in Syria as an al-Qaeda terrorist group.

The following is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Press TV: Looking at how Britain is calling al-Nusra Front nothing but another name for al-Qaeda, one has to ask what took them so long to recognize this?

Chossudovsky: This is a very important question. I should mention that the United States had already put al-Nusra on the State Department list. The United Nations Security Council of which Britain is a member has al-Nusra on their terrorist list.

So in effect I think that Britain is simply towing the line in putting this terrorist organization on the blacklist while at the same time supporting them covertly in violation of their own anti-terrorist legislation.

This is true for Britain, but it’s also true for the United States and several other countries, which openly support the al-Nusra affiliate to al-Qaeda via the so-called Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army.

Press TV: That’s an interesting point you raised there because even though al-Nusra Front is on multiple terrorist lists by these Western governments they are still continuing to support, fund, send arms and other equipment to the insurgents fighting against President Bashar al-Assad’s government and they have no idea whose hands these arms are falling into.

Of course al-Nusra Front is getting these arms, it is getting the equipment and it is getting the funding.

Chossudovsky: They know in whose hands these weapons fall because al-Nusra is the only relevant military or entity, paramilitary entity in Syria, which is currently fighting government forces.

So, in effect, all or most of the military aid from US and allied forces including the United Kingdom is in fact channeled through the Supreme Military Council to al-Nusra. And I should mention also that al-Nusra is being trained in the use of chemical weapons and in fact that training is often entrusted to private security companies – in other words mercenary companies and British mercenary companies.

Now… there is another dimension to this release concerning al-Nusra by the British authorities.

In a ceremony, which took place I believe yesterday when the Chief of Staff General Sir David Richards took leave of the armed forces he emphasized that Britain should not only continue to support the rebels – in fact what he meant by that, but he didn’t say it explicitly, al-Qaeda rebels – but at the same time General Sir David Richards emphasized that a ‘no-fly zone’ was not enough and what should be contemplated is an all-out ground war imply in effect an illegal land invasion of a sovereign country.

He was very explicit on that, he said we should support the rebels, but we should also send in ground forces into Syria. Whether this is his personal position or whether this is actually the position of Britain’s top military brass remains to be established.

But it suggests that the UK must be prepared to go to war with Syria in violation of international law not only by supporting an illegal terrorist organization namely al-Nusra, but also contemplating actions, which would imply sending in ground forces in support of the alliance’s foot soldiers al-Nusra, which are trained and financed out of Qatar and Saudi Arabia.