LONDON: Jihadi fighters in Syria plan to use western strikes as cover for a wave of attacks against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, it has been claimed, giving weight to fears that western military intervention could inflame violence in the Middle East.

“We will seize the opportunity to inflict on the regime as much losses as we can,” a member of the Ahrar Alsham Islamic Brigade in Syria told on Thursday. “We will make use of the regime’s confusion during the attack and will launch as many raids as we can against its sensitive positions. We have set up lots of plans on what to do during the attack.”

The jihadi group has become a one of the most powerful fighting units battling government forces, alongside the Free Syrian Army. The group believes it may also be targeted by US missiles, because it thinks the west has no intention of undermining Assad’s leadership and is instead intent on rooting out radical Islamist groups that would pose a long-term threat to Israel’s borders.

“We as Ahrar Alsham and all other Islamic organisations in Syria are in endless meetings to take all the required precautions on how to deal with the US aggression, as we believe that we are the prior target for the Americans,” said the fighter, who gave his name as Abu Rami. “This strike is against any honest, free and jihadi man who says no to America.”

He said he had been working as a labourer in Beirut when he joined a unit of the leading Salafist jihadi group in his home town of Homs soon after the start of the conflict. “The US administration has been protecting the regime all the time and won’t stop supporting it,” he said. “This regime has protected Israel’s borders for over 40 years. The US won’t topple this regime at all.”

Among the general population in Damascus on Thursday there was a feeling of fatalism about impending strikes. Some people said they hoped the strikes would be the start of a US mission to topple Assad.

Um Ali, a mother of five in the Damascus suburbs, said she was struggling for food and fuel, and her family had “lost everything, our house, our belongings, and at any moment we might lose our lives”.

“What we are going through is a blatant injustice,” she said. “We have been moving from one place to another, so if the US strikes it does not make any difference for us. We are pleading to the all good people in the world to come and help us, we can’t stand any more and they can’t leave us like this under the mercy of Bashar.

“We are ready to sustain the consequences of any attack against Bashar if it will put an end to our ongoing suffering and stop the machine of death that is sparing nobody.”

Assad loyalists such as Ibrahim Alkhal, a businessman, said Syrians felt defiant in the face of threats from the west, and lavished praise on the president. “Syrian nationals have great confidence in our government and our army,” Alkhal said.

“The US administration has to know that the moment it strikes Syria, the Syrian army and the resistance will erase Israel from the ground.

“I’m 50 years old and have never in all my life seen a man like president Bashar in his humanity and modesty,” he said. “If you go to the republic palace, President Bashar himself will open the door for you. I had the chance to meet him a year ago, such a wonderful man, he listens to everybody like his friends.”

By arrangement with the Guardian