"We've always stressed that the state of Qatar considers that a military solution will not lead to a sustainable result and that a political solution is the only way to end the suffering of the Syrian people," says Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari during a press conference in Doha. Al-Ansari's comments follow a lightning offensive by Islamist rebels who have wrested swathes of territory from the control of President Bashar al-Assad's government, including Syria's second largest city of Aleppo. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES