By Tim Anderson
Source: Khamenei News
For four long years, Syria bravely held off internationalized terrorist hordes, ideological clones of al-Saud, with their only direct help from Hezbollah, plus logistic support from Russia and Iran. However, it took more direct engagement by Russia and Iran to turn the tide of that defensive war and convincingly defeat the proxy armies of Washington, Tel Aviv and Riyadh.

When General Qassem Soleimani presented the victory letter to his leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, announcing the end of DAESH rule in the region, it was not simply a message from an Iranian General to his Commander in Chief.

This was the message of a regional resistance leader, a key strategist, who had fought the enemy from Saddam Hussein’s assaults on Iran, through defense of south Lebanon from Israel’s incursions, to defeats of al-Nusra in the towns of the Qalamoun, to the liberations of Aleppo and Tikrit, and the series of victories over DAESH (ISIS), culminating in those at Deir Ezzor and al-Bukamal.

General Soleimani’s personal supervision of operations across four allied countries shows why the Islamic Republic of Iran is so feared by both Tel Aviv and Washington. Yet breaking the destructive influence of Israel and the US in the region necessarily means a greater responsibility for Iran. Without a cohesive alliance, the region will again come under attack, to be once again divided and pillaged. Strong regional leadership is essential; and only Iran is capable of providing it.

The IRGC Quds Force leader wrote:

“Six years ago a dangerous plot … covered the Islamic world like a devastating storm … [but] the resistance of the Iraqi and Syrian governments and the perseverance of the armies and young men of these two countries … played an important role in overturning this dangerous event … [I can announce] the termination of the rule of this vicious cursed entity, following the liberation operation of Abu Kamal, as the last fort of ISIS, bringing down the flag of this US-Zionist made terrorist group and raising the flag of Syria.”

Credit for this tremendous achievement lies in the bravery and sacrifice of the soldiers of the Syrian Arab Army and its allies, the Russian pilots, sappers and special forces, the Hezbollah-led Lebanese resistance and Iraq’s army and its popular mobilization forces: Hashd al Shaabi. All victories were paid for in the blood of the many, mostly young people who defended their nations.

But it was the coordination and combined power of this alliance that imposed itself on the region. When, in his humble way, General Soleimani told Iran’s leader that DAESH had been defeated, he was also telling the world that the Axis of Resistance had prevailed. It was not that all terrorism had been eliminated, but rather that all the major bases of the enemy had been taken by the Regional Resistance.

And where would the region be without that Resistance? Lebanon, a state set up to fail, would have disintegrated many years ago. The invited intervention of Syria in the 1970s prevented that disintegration, followed by the rise of an indigenous resistance movement. That movement, led by Hezbollah and aided by Iran, saved Lebanon, while holding off the Zionist colonizers.

For four long years, Syria bravely held off internationalized terrorist hordes, ideological clones of al-Saud, with their only direct help from Hezbollah, plus logistic support from Russia and Iran. However, it took more direct engagement by Russia and Iran to turn the tide of that defensive war and convincingly defeat the proxy armies of Washington, Tel Aviv and Riyadh.

In Iraq – where DAESH was created more than a decade ago, precisely to weaken Baghdad and prevent its constructive relationship with Tehran – the American ‘liberators’ once against betrayed the country. In 2014, Washington withheld the F-16 fighter planes purchased by Prime Minister al Maliki, just as DAESH overwhelmed Mosul. It took another indigenous resistance movement, Hashd al Shaabi, to rise and vindicate Iraq as a nation.

Now the enemy smears both Hezbollah and Hashd al Shaabi, with lies that they are extreme sectarians who do not care about their own people. Coming from the sponsors of al Qaeda, al Nusra and DAESH, that is hard to stomach.

It is true that important resistance initiatives have come from the Shi’a communities of Lebanon and Iraq. There are historical reasons for this, to do with histories of oppression, martyrdom and resistance. However, those same histories, of an alliance of the downtrodden (the mustadafin) have helped engage those communities with their neighbors. Mature leadership in both resistance communities has succeeded in building wider alliances.

The sectarian accusation, particularly from western and Zionist sources, has much to do with the frustration of their ‘divide and rule’ strategies, as also their dismay in seeing a revival of political will amongst their opponents. Nevertheless, sectarian accusations can never explain Iranian support for pluralist Syria and Sunni Muslim Palestine; nor the Hezbollah-Christian alliance in Lebanon; nor the powerful Shia-Sunni alliance within Hashd al Shaabi.

The fact is that a tremendous Axis of Resistance victory is unfolding, one that confounds the colonial powers. Despite the investment in huge, sectarian mercenary armies, the prosecution of a crippling economic war and a seemingly endless propaganda war, Washington’s plan to dismember and cripple the region is failing.

*Professor Tim Anderson is a distinguished author and senior lecturer of political economy at the University of Sydney, Australia. Author of the ‘The Dirty War on Syria’, he has been largely published on various issues particularly the Syrian crisis.

Source: Sputnik

Several sources have told RIA Novosti about the alleged transfer of Daesh commanders by “US military aviation” from a Syrian town in an unknown direction.

US helicopters have transferred Daesh commanders from the town of al-Mayadin before the launch of the Syrian army’s operation, eyewitnesses told RIA Novosti.

“American military aviation first made a maneuver in the area […] near a Mayadin farm. Then [ the aviation] launched an airstrike, we tried to hide and saw several US helicopters. There were foreign Daesh commanders on the ground, who were waiting for them next to their headquarters… The helicopters took them outside of Mayadin,” a local shepherd, Muhammad Awad Hussein, told RIA Novosti.

He further said that he allegedly saw “US aviation… first a sound from it, then a massive strike that was followed by the US helicopters’ flight and transportation of Daesh leaders after which the airstrikes ceased.”

According to the 79-year-old man he had served in the Syrian army and can distinguish American aviation.

Other locals told RIA Novosti that they have allegedly seen how cars transported two foreign Daesh commanders with their families from Mayadin to the terrorist group’s headquarters […], after which helicopters arrived and took them in an unknown direction.

Mayadin Operation

Syrian army’s operation to liberate Mayadin, the once largest Daesh stronghold in the Deir Ezzor province that had been used by terrorists as a hub to accumulate weapons and manpower to launch attacks on the cities of Palmyra and Deir Ezzor, began in early October and ended about two weeks later.

During the course of the campaign to free the town, the Russian aviation carried out airstrikes on Daesh targets to support the government forces’ operation on the ground.

After the Mayadin victory, Brigadier General of the Syrian Arab Army Hasan Suheil showed reporters the weapons the government forces had captured after the liberation of the town. It turned out that the largest Daesh storehouse contained the latest examples of NATO weapons from the United States, Belgium and Britain.

Source: Tim Anderson FB
Thank you to the organisers and thank you Hashd al Shaabi (Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces). I want to extend my recognition of the Martyrs who fell in defence of this country when it was invaded by the US-led force, when it was destabilised by western powers, and when western powers got behind terrorist groups to further destabilise this country.

It is very important to talk about the sponsorship of terrorism, I believe, because as the war is being won against DAESH in Syria and Iraq, the terrorism persists and may still persist after the war is won, and the sponsorship of terrorism is the key to that: Can the war against terrorism be won after the country is liberated? Now, I know that some people are going to focus on the social background, context of terrorism, the ideology …but if they forget those who are providing finance and weapons to these groups, they are going to miss something very important. That is why I am going to focus on the role of the United States of America in Iraq, and in this region, as the principal sponsor of terrorism in the entire region.

I wrote an article two years ago saying that all of the terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq have been directly or indirectly sponsored by the United States of America. Of course evidence and reason are one important way of discussion, but that is not what determines political debate. Political debate is conditioned by consistent repetition of particular lines and particular myths. And of course, there is intimidation of voices that tend to counter those myths.

So I think it is important for us, particularly those of us who aren’t diplomats, to speak more directly about these issues because if not the same mistakes will be made.

I want to look at the role of the United States in supporting terrorism in this region as though it were a criminal prosecution. That is to say, where evidence is led about the two principal elements of the crime: one is the intention or the mental element and the other is the act, the actual act of involvement in terrorism. And of course we also have to take the regional look at this problem because for the last decade and a half we had wars and terrorism in six countries in this region, so given that context Iraq can’t be considered alone.

If we look at the mental element, the guilty mind, the ‘mens rea’ of the British legal system, we see that there has been a plan to dominate this country and its neighbours that goes back many, many years. The thought or the idea of a new Middle East – that was articulated more clearly after this country had been subjugated and invaded – in 2005 and 2006 is on public record. There were also plans to use sectarian violence in this country, to prevent a close relationship between Baghdad and Teheran, between neighbours, to try to block that constructive relationship; and that has a long history too. There is widespread evidence of control and integration of all of the regional terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq, for example, by use of US intelligence through its allies in the region, in particular, the al-Saud regime, Qatar and the government of Turkey.

There are admissions by senior US officials of strategic support for DAESH in Syria. You know for example, in late, no, in mid 2012 that the US DIA said that the construction of an Islamic state in Eastern Syria and Western Iraq was exactly, quote “exactly” what the US and its allies wanted in order to weaken the ‘regime’ in Damascus. We know that there are repeated, demonstrable lies over the pretext for the US re-entering this country, on the invitation of the Iraqi government, nevertheless a pretext (was) to be fighting DAESH.
And that follows on the earlier false pretext of the invasion. After the invasion this idea of a New Middle East and ‘constructive chaos’ was announced in Tel Aviv just prior to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which of course was defeated. We know that in Libya the situation was different. The Libyan State was destroyed by a NATO invasion, and the Salafist terrorists in that country, linked to DAESH, were directly linked to senior US officials. And they haven’t been ashamed by showing themselves photographed giving awards to the leaders of DAESH in Libya.

We know Seymour Hersh wrote about the ‘redirection’ in 2006 of the Bush Administration. We know that Al Qaeda in Iraq which became ISI, which became ISIS, became heavily internationalised in the year 2006. The main component of that internationalised force worked from Saudi Arabia, followed by North Africa and other countries. We know that DAESH fought with the Free Syrian Army, together, for a period of time in Northern Syria. We know the head of the US armed forces admitted, at the time of the US, let’s say reoccupation of this country, militarily, on the pretext of fighting DAESH, that the then head of the US army Mark Dempsey admitted that their “key Arab allies” were financing DAESH. We know that the (US) Vice President said that their key allies in the region were financing DAESH and all of the other groups to try and overthrow the government in Damascus.

The guilty acts, the guilty acts involved the overt weapons supply to the principal direct sponsors of DAESH. We know that the Bush Administration, the Obama Administration, the Trump Administration have sold increasing amounts of weapons, to the al Saud regime and Qatar in an increasing spiral, that is to say Obama sold more than Bush and Trump has been selling more than Obama. We know that the ideology and weapons have come from, from those countries. We know that the US even accuses Qatar of being a sponsor of terrorism.

The indirect supply of weapons, I was in Deir Ezzor two weeks ago, I saw a large cache of NATO weapons there, there were weapons from all over, some of those have come from this country DAESH brought them into Syria, including a NATO howitser with a 40km range, a whole range of technology that the Syrian Army captured.

We know that there have been reports of direct US assistance to DAESH commanders in this country and in Syria. The reports began in late 2014 and carry to 2015 where a number of senior Iraqi officials are complaining about the US using helicopters, for example, to remove DAESH commanders from one part to another. I spoke to a Syrian General in Deir Ezzor two weeks ago, he told me the same thing had happened down in the Euphrates in Deir Ezzor. They had three coordinates with US pick ups of DAESH commanders being evacuated as DAESH was being defeated by the Syrian Arab Army and its allies.

We know the omissions that took place that there was, while the US and the government of my country (Australia) pretended they were in this country and they were operating in Syria to fight DAESH, when in fact they mounted a brutal attack on Syrian soldiers just over a year ago, on a low mountain range south of Deir Ezzor, killing 123 soldiers, claiming it was a mistake. The same day DAESH took over that mountain range with the aim of trying to take the airport in Deir Ezzor.
I spoke with a survivor, a commanding officer of the Syrian Army two weeks ago and he told in detail how that the attack of five planes, including a line of sight machine gunning of Syrian soldiers on that mountain range, took place. At the same time United States forces bombed bridges going north to Raqqa and going East, sorry, going West to Tadmor. The US forces there to fight DAESH did nothing to prevent DAESH taking over the city of Tadmor, or Palmyra. In fact they actively assisted DAESH in Deir Ezzor, we have very clear evidence of that.

So when we look at that evidence, and we have to I suggest as reasonable people look at that evidence, there is an overwhelming case for the US role in masterminding these terrorist groups for its broader political strategy in this region.

Why is this important? It’s important because if we are going to have conversations about the post war situation and the reconstruction of Iraq, and we have broad general ideas of the international community being involved in that, we have to think: why would rational people invite those who have destroyed this country, destabilised it, thrown it into terrorism, to play a leading role in the reconstruction of this country. It deserves serious thought, I suggest.

Now I am not going to tell Iraqi people what to do because there are too many westerners who have been doing that for too long. But I just suggest that those who invited the wolf into their house have to find ways to get the wolf out. Many of us have diplomatic roles, but I suggest that the rest of us can and should talk more directly and honestly about who is behind terrorism in Iraq, and in this entire region. Thank you.

Tim Anderson’s presentation at the Baghdad Conference ‘Conference for International Dialogue on Terrorism’, 28 October 2017. Hosted by Hashd al Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation Forces), under the Office of the Prime Minister of Iraq.

Source: Press TV
Syria has strongly denounced a deadly Takfiri bomb attack on buses carrying people from two Shia-majority villages in the northwestern province of Idlib, calling on the United Nations to hold responsible the countries that fund terrorists and provide them with weapons and ammunition.

At least 126 people, including 68 children, were killed and dozens of others sustained injuries on Saturday, when a bomber blew up an explosive-laden car, ripping through several buses carrying evacuees from Kefraya and Foua villages in Idlib as they were waiting in al-Rashidin district to enter the city of Aleppo.

In two letters to United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the UN Security Council on Sunday, Syria’s Foreign Ministry said the barbaric attack clearly revealed that the terror groups, particularly Daesh and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham Takfiri terrorist groups, had been wearied by Syria’s repeated victories.

The ministry’s statement also stressed the need for coordinating international attempts aimed at battling terrorism in the Arab country and the necessity of full cooperation with Damascus in any counter-terrorism endeavor.

Elsewhere in the statement, the ministry said that some countries that claimed they supported human rights showed that their policies were aimed at more killings and destruction when they refused to condemn the deadly bus attack as a crime against humanity.

It added that the Saturday bombing complemented the US attack on the Shayrat Airfield in Homs Province with a barrage of 59 Tomahawk missiles on April 7, which caused some 15 fatalities, including civilians.

On Saturday, the UN condemned the bombing in al-Rashidin, calling on “the parties to ensure the safety and security of those waiting to be evacuated.”

The Syrian Foreign Ministry further called on the UN to pressure main supporters of terrorists operating inside the Middle Eastern country, namely Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, France, the UK and the US, to stop their support for terrorist groups.

By Andrew Korybko
Source: Regional Rapport
Trump dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat against Daesh in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar Province, and the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), nicknamed the “Mother Of All Bombs”, sent the clear signal to Russia, China, and Iran to “Move Over, America’s Back” in Eurasia. The bomb itself has comparatively little utility against Daesh aside from supposedly being able to penetrate through the mountainous tunnels that the terrorists are hiding in.

The purpose in using it was to demonstrate a disproportionate show of strength designed to intimidate the leaders of the emerging Multipolar World Order. In the scope of hardly a week, Trump bombed the Syrian Arab Army and dispatched a naval strike group to North Korea, thereby indirectly challenging Russia and China. Iran has been under pressure from the Trump Administration since day one, but the MOAB dropping heightened the threat perception that Tehran must be feeling now. Trump deliberately chose Afghanistan as the first combat “testing site” for MOAB for a few reasons, not least of which is because its strategic location at the crossroads of West, South, and Central Asia was designed to “kill three birds with one stone” by making sure that Russia, China, and Iran equally got the hostile message that the American President was conveying.

Moreover, the timing of the “test” also isn’t coincidental because it occurred the day before Moscow hosts the third round of Afghan peace talks, a newly expanded 11-member format which the US declined to participate in. Trump wants to preemptively disrupt any possible progress that could be made at these talks, and using MOAB was intended to achieve this goal. The bomb’s combat “testing” powerfully demonstrates Washington’s “anti-terrorist” commitment to Kabul, and given that the Afghan government designates the Taliban as “terrorists”, the logical connection is that the US won’t shy away from using this weapon against the anti-occupation fighters either.

Of course, Kabul can’t help but feel emboldened by such a message, which could lead to its representatives refusing to cede any ground on their long-standing position against recognizing the Taliban — including “good” anti-Daesh Taliban — as a legitimate political force in the country. Coming on the eve of the Moscow talks, this assuredly cements the Afghan-Indian diplomatic axis as the “odd men out” of what is supposed to at least nominally be a multipolar gathering. These unipolar-aligned states will certainly behave as the US’ spoilsports in refusing to even countenance a political solution to the country’s war by dismissing the inevitable pragmatism of recognizing “good” Taliban, all per the signal that the Pentagon just sent via MOAB.

Aside from geopolitical messaging and diplomatic sabotage, MOAB’s additional fallout is that it proves that the US is willing to up the stakes in conventional warfare by unprecedentedly “testing” such a massive munition on the battlefield. North Korea, Iran, and Syria will take note of this and correctly understand that Trump is also threatening them by using this weapon. The US military wants to intimidate these three countries into making political concessions in exchange for their civilian populations being spared the horrific consequences if this bomb were ever used against them. Pyongyang has nuclear weapons and can thus give Washington reason to think twice about turning its people into guinea pigs for testing this weapon in civilian areas, while Tehran reportedly has an impressive missile stockpile which could inflict devastating damage against US bases in the region if the Pentagon gets any worrisome ideas.

Damascus, however, has no such deterrent to protect it, and is therefore the weakest of the three potential state targets that the US could drop MOAB on and consequently the most likely of the bunch to be victimized if Trump is so inclined. Russia has already reiterated in the days following Trump’s cruise missile strike against Syria that its military mandate only strictly deals with fighting terrorism and not defending its host’s military, population, or borders, and that it wouldn’t risk a wider war by shooting down any future salvos, yet MOAB is much too heavy to be launched by a cruise missile and would have to most likely be dropped by an actual warplane.

In theory, this presents a possible dilemma for Russia — would Moscow passively permit Washington’s use of such a disproportionate munition as MOAB in Syria, or would it risk a wider war by overstepping its military mandate (to the presumed delight of Damascus)? The answer can’t be known in advance but only speculated on because MOAB might fundamentally change the rules of the game and prompt Russia to reconsider its military mandate in Syria if it had a plausible reason to believe that the US might use this weapon there in order to send a dual message to Damascus and Moscow.

To the first one, that Washington wants regime change, while to the second, that the Pentagon wants to humiliate the Russian military by crafting the perception that the US is using this weapon “under their watch” because Moscow is much too fearful of sparking a wider war by shooting down its delivery vehicle (most likely a warplane). MOAB’s combat “testing” in Afghanistan might just be a dramatic “one-off” for domestic and international messaging purposes, or the weapon could be intended for future use against North Korea, Iran, and/or Syria, the first one as a strong message against China and the last as the same towards Russia. Either way, dropping MOAB against Daesh was an undeniable statement of force to the US’ multipolar rivals to “Move Over, America’s Back” in Eurasia, and will probably have the consequence of bringing all five parties closer together out of strategic defensive necessity.

Source: SANA
President Bashar al-Assad said that the solution to the crisis in Syria should be through two parallel ways: the first one is to fight the terrorists, and this is our duty as government, to defend the Syrians and use any means in order to destroy the terrorists who’ve been killing and destroying in Syria, and the second one is to make dialogue.

The president added in an interview given to Chinese PHOENIX TV that any foreign troops coming to Syria without our invitation or consultation or permission, they are invaders, whether they are American, Turkish, or any other one.

Flowing is the full text of the interview:

Question 1: Thank you Mr. President for having us here in Dimashq, the capital of Syria. I think this is the first interview you have with Chinese media after the national ceasefire and after so many fresh rounds of talks, both in Astana and in Geneva, and of course after US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, and these days, as we have seen, your troops are making steady progress in battlefields, but peace talks do not seem just as productive. So, as far as the Geneva talks is concerned, your chief negotiator, Mr. Jaafari, was trying hard to find out who should be sitting on the other side of the negotiation table. So, according to your idea, who should be sitting there?

President Assad: This is a very crucial question. If you want those negotiations to be fruitful, we have to ask “who is going to be sitting there?” I mean, there could be a lot of good people with good intentions, but the question is: who do they represent? That’s the question. In this situation, you have different groups, you have people who are, let’s say, patriotic, but they don’t represent anyone, they represent themselves. You have others who represent the terrorists, and you have terrorists on the table, and you have others who represent the agenda of foreign countries like Saudi Arabia, like Turkey, like France, UK and maybe the United States. So, it’s not a homogeneous meeting. If you want it to be fruitful, going back to the first point that I mentioned, it should be a real Syrian-Syrian negotiations. In spite of that, we went to that meeting because we think any kind of dialogue could be a good step toward the solution, because even those people who are terrorists or belonging to the terrorists or to other countries, they may change their mind and go back to their normality by going back to being real Syrians, detach themselves from being terrorists or agents to other groups. That’s why I say we didn’t expect Geneva to produce anything, but it’s a step, and it’s going to be a long way, and you may have other rounds, whether in Geneva or in Astana.

Question 2: But anyway, it is an intra-Syrian talks, right? But the matter of fact is, it is proxy dialogue. I mean, main parties do not meet and have dialogue directly.

President Assad: Exactly.

Journalist: Are you personally satisfied with the current negotiation format or mechanism?

President Assad: we didn’t forge this mechanism; it was forged by de Mistura and the UN with the influence of the countries that wanted to use those negotiations in order to make pressure on Syria, not to reach any resolution. As you just said, each one represents a different agenda, even the opposition delegations, it wasn’t one delegation; different delegations of the opposition. So, if I’m going to – as a government – if I’m going to negotiate with someone, who’s it going to be? Which one? Who represents who? That’s our question. So, you are right, this time there was no negotiations in Geneva, but this is one of the reasons, that’s why it didn’t reach anything. The only thing we discussed in Geneva was the agenda, the headlines, what are we going to discuss later, that’s it.

Question 3: But as we see, lot of time, money, energy have been put into this effort, and the clashes are still going on, people are still dying, and the refugees are still increasing.

President Assad: Exactly.

Journalist: What is the possible way of having a negotiation?

President Assad: Again, you are correct. The more delay you have, the more harm and destruction and killing and blood you’ll have within Syria, that’s why we are very eager to achieve a solution, but how and in which way? You need to have two parallel ways: the first one is to fight the terrorists, and this is our duty as government, to defend the Syrians and use any means in order to destroy the terrorists who’ve been killing and destroying in Syria. The second one is to make dialogue. This dialogue has many different aspects; you have the political one, which is related to the future of Syria; what political system do you need, what kind? It doesn’t matter which one, it depends on the Syrians, and they’re going to have referendum about what they want. The second part is to try to bring many of those people who were affiliated to the terrorists or who committed any terrorist acts to go back to their normality and lay down their armaments and to live normal life in return for amnesty that has been offered by the government, and we’ve been going in that direction for three years, and it worked very well. It worked very well. So, actually, if you want to talk about the real political solution since the beginning of the crisis, of the war on Syria, till this moment, the only solution was those reconciliations between the government and the different militants in Syria, many of them joined the government now, and they are fighting with the government. Some of them laid down their.

Question 4: But talking about the Syria war, you can never exclude the foreign factors. The Saudi-backed high negotiating committee, HNC, are saying that they are counting on the Trump administration to play a positive role instead of the mistaken policies under his predecessor Barack Obama. So, from your side, what do you expect from Trump’s Middle East policy, particularly policy on Syria?

President Assad: The first part that you mentioned about their hopes, when you pin your hopes on a foreign country, doesn’t matter which foreign country, it means you’re not patriotic, and this is proved, because they should depend on the support of the Syrian people, not any other government or administration.

Now, regarding the Trump administration, during his campaign and after the campaign, the main rhetoric of the Trump administration and the president himself was about the priority of defeating ISIS. I said since the beginning that this is a promising approach to what’s happening in Syria and in Iraq, because we live in the same area and we face the same enemy. We haven’t seen anything concrete yet regarding this rhetoric, because we’ve been seeing now certain is a local kind of raids. You cannot deal with terrorism on local basis; it should be comprehensive, it cannot be partial or temporary. It cannot be from the air, it should be in cooperation with the troops on the ground, that’s why the Russians succeeded, since they supported the Syrian Army in pushing ISIS to shrink, not to expand as it used to be before that. So, we have hopes that this taking into consideration that talking about ISIS doesn’t mean talking about the whole terrorism; ISIS is one of the products, al-Nusra is another product, you have so many groups in Syria, they are not ISIS, but they are Al Qaeda, they have the same background of the Wahabi extremist ideology.

Question 5: So, Mr. President, you and Mr. Donald Trump actually share the same priority which is counter-terrorism, and both of you hate fake news. Do you see any room for cooperation?

President Assad: Yeah, in theory, yes, but practically, not yet, because there’s no link between Syria and the United States on the formal level. Even their raids against ISIS that I just mentioned, which are only a few raids, happened without the cooperation or the consultation with the Syrian Army or the Syrian government which is illegal as we always say. So, theoretically we share those goals, but particularly, not yet.

Question 6: Do you have personal contact with the President of the United States?

President Assad: Not at all.

Journalist: Direct or indirect.

President Assad: Indirect, you have so many channels, but you cannot bet on private channels. It should be formal, this is where you can talk about a real relation with another government.

Question 7: As we speak, top generals from Turkey, Russia, and the United States are meeting somewhere in Turkey to discuss tensions in northern Syria, where mutually- suspicious forces are allied with these countries. So, do you have a plan for a final attack on Daesh when the main players actually do need an effective coordination in order to clear Syria of all terror groups?

President Assad: Yeah, if you want to link that meeting with ISIS in particular, it won’t be objective, because at least one party, which is Turkey, has been supporting ISIS till this moment, because Erdogan, the Turkish President, is Muslim Brotherhood. He’s ideologically linked and sympathetic with ISIS and with al-Nusra, and everybody knows about this in our region, and he helped them either through armaments, logistically, through exporting oil. For the other party, which is the United States, at least during Obama’s administration, they dealt with ISIS by overlooking their smuggling the Syrian oil to Turkey, and this is how they can get money in order to recruit terrorists from around the world, and they didn’t try to do anything more than cosmetic against ISIS. The only serious party in that regard is Russia, which is effectively attacking ISIS in cooperation with us. So, the question is: how can they cooperate, and I think the Russians have hope that the two parties join the Russians and the Syrians in their fight against terrorism. So, we have more hopes now regarding the American party because of the new administration, while in Turkey nothing has changed in that regard. ISIS in the north have only one route of supply, it’s through Turkey, and they’re still alive and they’re still active and they’re still resisting different kinds of waves of attacks, because of the Turkish support.

Question 8: Now, US troops are in Manbej. Is the greenlight from your side? Did you open the door for these American troops?

President Assad: No, no, we didn’t. Any foreign troops coming to Syria without our invitation or consultation or permission, they are invaders, whether they are American, Turkish, or any other one. And we don’t think this is going to help. What are they going to do? To fight ISIS? The Americans lost nearly every war. They lost in Iraq, they had to withdraw at the end. Even in Somalia, let alone Vietnam in the past and Afghanistan, your neighboring country. They didn’t succeed anywhere they sent troops, they only create a mess; they are very good in creating problems and destroying, but they are very bad in finding solutions.

Question 9: Talking about Russia and China, they just vetoed a new UN sanction on Syria last week. What do these Chinese vetoes mean exactly for your country?

President Assad: Let’s be very clear about their position, which is not to support the Syrian government or the Syrian president, because in the West they try to portray it as a personal problem, and as Russia and China and other countries and Iran support that person as president. It’s not the case. China is a member of the Security Council, and it’s committed to the Charter of the United Nations. In that veto, China has defended first of all the Charter, because the United Nations was created in order to restore stability around the world. Actually, the Western countries, especially the permanent members of the Council as a tool or means in order to change regimes or governments and to implement their agenda, not to restore stability, and actually to create more instability around the world. So the second part is that China restored stability in the world by creating some kind of political balance within the United Nations, of course in cooperation with Russia, which is very important for the whole world. Of course, Syria was the headline, the main headline, this is good for Syria, but again it’s good for the rest of the world. Third, the same countries that wanted to use the UN Charter for their own vested interested are the same countries who interfered or tried to intervene in your country in the late 90s, and they used different headlines, human rights, and so on, and you know that, and if they had the chance, they would change every government in the world, whether big country or small country, just when this government tries to be a little bit independent. So, China protected the Chinese interests, Syrian interests, and the world interests, especially the small countries or the weak countries.

Question 10: If I’m not mistaken, you said China is going to play a role in the reconstruction of Syria. So, in which areas you think China can contribute to bring Syrian people back to their normal life after so many years of hardships?

President Assad: Actually, if you talk about what the terrorists have been doing the last six years, it’s destroying everything regarding the infrastructure. In spite of that, the Syrian government is still effective, at least by providing the minimum needs for the Syrian people. But they’ve been destroying everything in every sector with no exception. Adding to that, the Western embargo in Syria has prevented Syria from having even the basic needs for the livelihood of any citizen in Syria. So, in which sector? In every sector. I mean, China can be in every sector with no exception, because we have damage in every sector. But if we talk about now, before this comprehensive reconstruction starts, China now is being involved directly in building many projects, mainly industrial projects, in Syria, and we have many Chinese experts now working in Syria in different projects in order to set up those projects. But of course, when you have more stability, the most important thing is building the destroyed suburbs. This is the most important part of the reconstruction. The second one is the infrastructure; the sanitation system, the electricity, the oil fields, everything, with no exception. The third one: the industrial projects, which could belong to the private sector or the public sector in Syria.

Question 11: Alright. And it seems no secret that there are some Chinese extremists are here, fighting alongside Daesh. I think it is a threat to both Syria and China. What concrete or effective measures do you have to control border and prevent these extremists from free movement in the region?

President Assad: When you talk about extremists or terrorists, it doesn’t matter what their nationality is, because they don’t recognize borders, and they don’t belong to a country. The only difference between nationality and nationality, is that those for example who came from your country, they know your country more than the others, so they can do more harm in your country that others, and the same for Syrians, the same for Russian terrorist, and so on. So now, the measures, every terrorist should be defeated and demolished, unless he changed his position to the normal life. Second, because you’re talking about different nationalities -more than 80 nationalities – you should have cooperation with the other governments, especially in the intelligence field, and that’s what’s happening for example with the Chinese intelligence regarding the Uyghur terrorists who are coming from China through Turkey. Unfortunately, the only means that we don’t have now and we don’t control is our borders with Turkey, because the Uyghur in Particular, they came from Turkey, the others coming maybe from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, form the sea, maybe, and the majority from Turkey, but the Uyghur terrorists coming mainly from Turkey. Why? I don’t know why, but they have the support of the Turkish government, and they were gathered and collected in one group, and they were sent to the northern part of Syria. So, the mission now is to attack them, wherever they existed. Of course, sometimes you cannot tell which one… who is who, they mix with each other, but sometimes they work as separate groups from different nationalities. And this is very crucial kind of cooperation between the Syrian and the Chinese intelligence, and we did many good steps in that regard.

Question 12: Mr. President, as you may be fully aware that the “White Helmets” took an Oscar this year for the best documentary short, but folks are saying that the truth about this “White Helmets” is not like what Netflix has presented, so what is your take on this?

President Assad: First of all, we have to congratulate al-Nusra for having the first Oscar! This is an unprecedented event for the West to give Al Qaeda an Oscar; this is unbelievable, and this is another proof that the Oscars, Nobel, all these things are politicized certificates, that’s how I can look at it. The White Helmets story is very simple; it is a facelift of al-Nusra Front in Syria, just to change their ugly face into a more humanitarian face, that’s it. And you have many videos on the net and of course images broadcasted by the White Helmets that condemn the White Helmets as a terrorists group, where you can see the same person wearing the white helmet and celebrating over the dead bodies of Syrian soldiers. So, that’s what the Oscar went to, to those terrorists. So, it’s a story just to try to prevent the Syrian Army during the liberation of Aleppo from making more pressure on the attacking and liberating the districts within the city that have been occupied by those terrorists, to say that the Syrian Army and the Russians are attacking the civilians and the innocents and the humanitarian people.

Question 13: Right. Now Palmyra. I took a one-day trip to Palmyra this time. Now, the city is under your control, so as its strategic position is concerned, because Homs is the heart of Syria, it’s right in the middle, now, when you have Palmyra, what is your next target? Are you going to expand a military operation into Raqqa and Dier Ezzor?

President Assad: We are very close to Raqqa now. Yesterday, our troops reached the Euphrates River which is very close to Raqqa city, and Raqqa is the stronghold of ISIS today, so it’s going to be a priority for us, but that doesn’t mean the other cities are not priority, in time that could be in parallel, because Palmyra is on the way to Dier Ezzor city in the eastern part of Syria which is close to the Iraqi borders, and those areas that have been used by ISIS as route for logistic support between ISIS in Iraq and ISIS in

Syria. So, whether you attack the stronghold or you attack the route that ISIS uses, it has the same result.

Question 14: How many days do you think this war is going to last?

President Assad: if we presume that you don’t have foreign intervention, it will take a few months. It’s not very complicated internally. The complexity of this war is the foreign intervention. This is the problem. So, in the face of that intervention, the good thing that we gained during the war is the unity of the society. At the very beginning, the vision for many Syrians wasn’t very clear about what’s happening. Many believed the propaganda of the West about the reality, about the real story, that this is against the oppression. If it’s against the oppression, why the people in Saudi Arabia didn’t revolt, for example? So, now what we gained is this, this is our strongest foundation to end that war. We always have hope that this year is going to be the last year. But at the end, this is war and you can’t expect what is going to happen precisely.

Question 15: Mr. President, you are President of the Syrian Republic, at the same time, you are a loving husband and a father of three. How can you balance the role of being a President, a father, and a husband?

President Assad: If you cannot succeed in your small duty which is your family, you cannot succeed in your bigger duty or more comprehensive duty at the level of a country. So, there is no excuse that if you have a lot of work to abandon your duties; it’s a duty. You have to be very clear about that, you have to fulfill those duties in a very good way. Of course, sometimes those circumstances do not allow you to do whatever you have to do, your duties, fully, let’s say.

Journalist: During a day, how much time you spend on work, and how much time you spend with your family members?

President Assad: Actually, it’s not about the time, because even if you are at your home, you have to work.

Journalist: Okay.

President Assad: Let’s say, in the morning and the evening, you have the chance, but in between and after those times, you have the whole day to work.

Question 16: Have you ever thought of leaving this country for the sake of your family?

President Assad: Never, after six years, I mean the most difficult times passed; it was in 2012 and 2013, those times we never thought about it, how can I think about it now?

So, no, no, this is not an option. Whenever you have any kind of reluctance, you will lose. You will lose not with your enemies; you lose with your supporters. Those supporters, I mean the people you work with, the fighters, the army, they will feel if you’re not determined to defend your country. We never had any feeling neither me nor any member of my family.

Question 17: And how is Kareem’s Chinese getting along?

President Assad: He learned the basics of Chinese language, I think two years ago. Unfortunately, the lady and the man who taught him had to leave, because they were members of the Chinese Embassy. They went back to China. Now, he stopped improve his Chinese language.

Question 18: Do you think it is a good choice to learn Chinese for him?

President Assad: Of course, of course, because China is a rising power.

Journalist: You didn’t force him to learn Chinese? It’s his own option, right?

President Assad: No, no, we never thought about it, actually. I didn’t think that he has to learn Chinese, and I didn’t expect him, if I thought about it, that he would say yes, because for many in the world the Chinese language is a difficult language to learn. He took the initiative and he said I want to learn Chinese, and actually till this moment, I didn’t ask him why. I want him to feel free, but when he’s getting older, I’m going to ask him how? How did it come through your mind to learn this language, this difficult language, but of course important language.

Journalist: You didn’t ask him before? President Assad: No, not yet. Journalist: So, you think it’s a good choice?

President Assad: Of course, of course. As I said, it’s a rising power, it’s important. I mean, most of the world has different kinds of relation with China whether in science, in politics, in economy, in business, I mean, in every filed you need it now. And our relation for the future is going to be on the rise. It was good, but it’s going to be on the rise because when a country like China proves that it’s a real friend, a friend that you can rely on, it’s very natural to have better relation on the popular level, not only on the formal level.

Journalist: Thank you Mr. President, thank you for your time.

President Assad: Thank you for coming to Syria, you’re most welcome.