DAMASCUS – U.S. support for Syrian rebels may lead to more attacks on American soil like those of September 11, said a senior Syrian official who warned that Islamist fighters would spread “the fire of terrorism” around the world.

Western powers are alarmed at al Qaeda militants joining a revolt that began two years ago with rallies for democracy and President Bashar al-Assad has seized on that unease; now, 10 days after the Boston Marathon bombings, Syria’s deputy foreign minister told Reuters that U.S. aid to the rebels may backfire.

“Once the fire of terrorism spreads in Syria it will go everywhere in the world,” Faisal Mekdad said in an interview.

Referring to foreign jihadists whose presence has made the United States and European allies wary of arming Syrian rebels, he said: “These chickens will go back to roost where they came from because encouraging terrorism definitely backfires … Once these terrorists succeed in Syria, they will go everywhere.”

Speaking in fluent English at the heavily guarded white, stone-clad complex in central Damascus which houses the Foreign Ministry and prime minister’s offices, Mekdad drew a comparison, made also by Assad himself, with the U.S.-backed Muslim holy war against Soviet occupiers in Afghanistan that fostered al Qaeda.

And asked whether the Boston bombings, blamed on radicalized Muslim immigrants, might change American views of a Syrian conflict that Assad has long painted as a war on terrorism, he replied: “I hope the American administration will remember again the September 11 attack – which we strongly condemned in Syria – and not repeat these policies which encourage terrorism.”

Of 37 nationalities of “terrorist” he said were fighting in Syria, many were European, Mekdad said, including some from Russia’s Chechnya region, ancestral home of the Boston suspects.

Like other senior officials interviewed lately in Damascus, Mekdad projected a breezy confidence in Syrian forces’ ability to win the civil war and denied the rebels were gaining ground.

He said his government enjoyed broad international support, not limited to Russia or to Iran. 

“I would like to say, with all confidence, that all Syria is controlled by the government but there are places where armed groups have been armed, financed, by certain circles – namely Qatar, Saudi Arabia, France and the UK and other European countries – who due to logistical reasons may control this or that part of Syria,” he said. “But this is moving every day.”

Asked when the government might win, Mekdad said it was combating “terrorist groups and usually in all those countries which have suffered the plague of terrorism it takes time.”

“Once this support from neighboring and European countries ceases we can easily deal with it,” he added. He cited apparent success in offensives in Homs and near the western border, where rebels say Lebanese Hizbullah fighters are supporting Syrian troops.