Illustration: Peter C.Espina/GT

When millions of people around the world were taken aghast by the pictures of drowned three-year-old Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi lying washed up on a Turkish beach and the massive refugee crisis engulfing Europe, they should see through the fact that the US is mainly responsible for all the mess.

The main sources of today's refugees - Syria, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan - are targets of US intervention, which led to devastation, chaos, deteriorating domestic security and extensive displacements.

People in those countries could no longer enjoy even basic human rights. Many of them had no choice but to flee for life, not only to neighboring countries, but to Europe.

According to UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, more than 300,000 refugees and migrants have ventured to cross the Mediterranean into Europe so far this year, and over 2,600 didn't survive the dangerous journey.

While the European countries are accused of indifference and incapability to cope with the refugee crisis, the US, their closest ally and the major cause of the crisis, seems not to have realized its moral obligation to help clean up the mess and work to address the root cause of the problem.

Syria is the latest country following Iraq and Libya to become the victim of US intervention in the Middle East. Having been mired in a full-blown civil war for four years due to persistent US-led Western intervention, the country was the largest source of refugees bound for Europe in 2013, 2014 and the first half of this year.

Islamic State (IS) militants, emerging from the Syrian opposition that was supported by the US to topple the Syrian government, have launched numerous attacks against Syrian civilians, who have become targets of kidnappings, suicide and car bombings, among others. Their lives are at peril if they stay in their own country.

On other fronts, although the US has pulled out its troops from some countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, it should be still held accountable for having destabilized these countries in the first place and then leaving them in a hopeless mess.

As a self-styled leader of the world, it is a shame for the US to stir up chaos, anarchism and the emergence of extremist and terrorist groups in those countries by its selfish foreign policies.

Now as Europe struggles to cope with a daily influx of thousands of refugees, the US should act immediately and do more to help solve the refugee crisis and work out long-term measures to help troubled countries and regions restore calm, stability and normal life as soon as possible.

The author is a writer with the Xinhua News Agency. The article first appeared in Xinhua. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn