‘We are sure Brahimi will fail like the other envoys before him, but we (the rebels) do not want to be the reason of his failure,’ the FSA chief for Aleppo province in north Syria, Colonel Abdel Jabbar Al Okaidi, told AFP by telephone.

‘We discussed the general situation in Syria, mainly focusing on the destruction wielded by the regime on the country,’ said Okaidi, who talked to Brahimi along with the FSA spokesman in Syria, Colonel Qassem Saadeddine, and the group’s chief in Damascus, Colonel Khaled Hobous.

Brahimi, appointed international envoy to Syria in early September, arrived in the strife-torn country for his first visit on Thursday.

He warned on Saturday after a meeting with President Bashar Al Assad that the worsening conflict in Syria threatens both the region and the world at large.

‘The crisis is dangerous and getting worse, and it is a threat to the Syrian people, the region and the world,’ said Brahimi, who replaced envoy Kofi Annan who quit after a hard-sought peace deal he had brokered became a dead letter.

‘We are sure Brahimi will fail because the international community does not actually want to help the Syrian people,’ said Okaidi. ‘People are being killed continuously in the country, with all kinds of destructive weapons.’

He accused the international community of ‘giving political cover to the regime’ and of pushing the opposition to hold talks with the regime but without pressuring the government to stop its repression.

‘We do not want the international community to help the Syrian people. We just want it to remove the political cover it grants to the criminal regime,’ said Okaidi. ‘We cannot be in dialogue with criminals.’

Eighteen months into the crisis, the international community remains paralysed, with the West, the Gulf and Turkey calling for the removal of Assad, and Russia and China standing by its ally in Damascus.

On Saturday, Brahimi insisted that ‘the solution can only come from the Syrian people.’

‘There is a need for all parties to unite their efforts to find a solution for the crisis, given Syria’s strategic importance... and the crisis’s influence over the whole region,’ Brahimi said.