Syria Rebel Chief Condemns U.S. Al-Nusra Front Blacklisting

A key mainstream Syrian rebel commander condemned on Wednesday a US decision to blacklist the jihadist Al-Nusra Front as a "terrorist organization."

"We reject this decision," Colonel Abdel Jabbar al-Okaidi, head of the Free Syrian Army in the battleground northern province of Aleppo, told Agence France Presse.

"Al-Nusra Front has never done anything illegal or worth condemning against a foreign country. They are fighting side by side with us.

"The United States should blacklist as terrorists the leaders of the regime" of President Bashar Assad, Okaidi said. "They are massacring civilians, and destroying mosques and houses."