Mr. Farouq Al Habib:

I will reply directly. There are no Syrian checkpoints in Lebanon because Lebanon is controlled by Hezbollah. The Syrian army does not need to exist on the ground in Lebanon as long as its closest ally is able to conduct any action it needs in Lebanon.

How does one identify refugees? I am not an expert in that regard. Ireland needs to co-ordinate with other European countries to establish a unit for due diligence to examine the history of those refugees, for example to look at their Facebook or Twitter pages because we heard that some of those who were involved in atrocities in Syria, both from the extremist side and from the Assad security or army forces, decided to retire to Europe. We need Europe to conduct due diligence and not offer them a happy life here after all the crimes they have committed in Syria.

I do not trust the Russians, but if I did I would tell them that what they are doing is threatening their national security and the security of Europe. Can they imagine the position of people who were already under siege by indiscriminate shelling by barrel bombs from the regime and suddenly the Russians attack them? The first air strike by the Russians was on the northern countryside of Homs where there was a big battle against ISIS four months ago to kick it out of the region. ISIS is no longer in that region. The first air strike by Russia was on that area where there is no ISIS and which lost more than 100 armed men in the fight with ISIS. They were bombed and on the same day the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow announced that it is a holy battle. Can the committee imagine the reaction of the Muslims there? It was of great assistance to the extremists to tell people that this is a serious campaign against Islam and Muslims and has nothing to do with extremists because the Russians bombed non-ISIS areas. They bombed some FSA groups which were armed by the Americans and had been vetted and identified as moderate opposition. They bombed the building of the local council in Tel Bisi which is a civil society organisation elected by the people. These actions fuel extremism and jeopardise the position of counter-extremism. It threatens national security in Russia and Europe. Russia should be convinced that if it continues to support the Assad regime it will mean the expansion of extremism in Syria.

We would be happy to have compromise. Just before the Geneva II meeting, I was in Yabroud in the Damascus countryside and I met with fighters from an FSA group. I told them that after the meeting in Geneva there might be a compromise with the Assad government, and asked them would they stop fighting and what they would do if the leader of their armed group rejected the Geneva agreement. They told me that if the politicians in Geneva reached a compromise without Assad, because, as I said, he is a symbol, they would kill their leader if he stood against the agreement. All of those young men are tired. They are human beings like us. They just want to go back to their families. They have been forced to carry arms to defend their territories and they just want to go back home to see their children and their mothers. We cannot have transition with the symbols of killing, from all sides, not only from the regime side. All those who provoke the other side, either the leaders of the Syrian army or the leaders of specific armed groups and the opposition should be isolated from the transitional governing body. The transitional governing body should be made up of people from both sides who are in the middle or close to the middle. We cannot have those symbols. There are tens of thousands of armed men and nobody can control them now if they are not offered an alternative, a way to convince them that they can have their rights and justice without arms. This might be with part of the Syrian Government, by the way.