According to the Russian news agency Sputnik, the American bi-monthly international affairs magazine The National Interest has published an article calling for the Obama administration to support radical jihadists in the war against Bashar al-Assad.

The analysis authored by former US military intelligence officer Thomas Buonomo states so-called moderate rebels in Syria have been "effectively compelled to enter into a devil's bargain with the radical Islamists in order to have any chance of accomplishing their overriding goal" of overthrowing the "irredeemable dictator Bashar al-Assad."

Buonomo states that mercenaries who have not joined the jihadists "are by now either dead, have withdrawn from the battlefield, or are hoping they will not be killed as a result of the indecisive geopolitical calculations of their American patrons."

"Taking these risks [Russian intervention] into consideration, the Obama administration should increase its military aid to the moderate rebel factions in order to pressure Putin to jettison Assad," Buonomo writes.