Source: FarsNews
Around 250 militants in the Southern province of Dara’a laid down their arms on Monday and turned themselves in to the Syrian officials as the pro-government forces keep on advancing across the country.

The militants formerly fighting in the Southern battlefields of the country surrendered to the Syrian government as the forces loyal to the Syrian President Bashar Assad continue gaining ground across the country.

The 250 surrendered militants are mostly from al-Sanamein region, including 130 from the village of Kefr Shams.

Earlier this month, at least 59 militants in two provinces of Damascus and Idlib turned themselves in to the Syrian authorities.

Also, 27 Takfiri militants laid down arms and turned themselves in to the Syrian army in Homs, Hama and Idlib provinces in February.

Reports said also in late December that some 157 wanted militants turned themselves in to the Syrian authorities.

Some 117 wanted persons from Homs surrendered to be pardoned.

Meanwhile, 40 wanted persons from the provinces of Damascus and Hama also turned themselves in to the authorities.

Early in January, 86 wanted persons from Damascus province and Aleppo also gave up fight.

City officials also announced on December 22 that at least 15 militants laid down arms and surrendered to the competent authorities in Aleppo after the army and the country’s popular forces’ victories across the province.

Until last year, most surrendering cases happened in Homs and Damascus provinces, but now a growing number of militants lay down arms across the country. As the army scores more wins across Syria more militants lay down arms to save their lives.

Some 116 Takfiri militants turned themselves in to the Syrian army in Homs province on December 20.

On December 12, some 20 wanted Takfiri terrorists in Hama province gave up fight and turned themselves in to the authorities to enjoy the general amnesty issued by President Bashar Al-Assad that has been in place for the last several years.

Some 200 wanted militants from Zabadani region and Madaya in Damascus province also surrendered earlier in December.

“The Syrian government has vowed to pardon all those who lay down arms voluntarily and it has remained loyal to its pledge so far, and this has encouraged us to give up fight, specially considering that the government troops, National Defense Forces (NDF) and Hezbollah who also enjoy the air backup of the Syrian and Russian air forces has gained momentum in its battlefield victories,” one of those who surrendered in Damascus on December 5 said.

President Bashar Assad’s government freed 270 militants within the framework of the country’s reconciliation plan on December 11.

By Sharmine Narwani
Source: RT
Syrian peace talks have already stalled. The opposition refused to be in the same room as the government delegation, while the latter blamed opposition ‘preconditions’ and the organizers’ inability to produce a ‘list of designated terrorists’.

The UN’s special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura has now promised talks will reconvene on February 25, but how will he achieve this?

So much has shifted on the global political stage and in the Syrian military theater since this negotiation process first began gaining steam.

In just the past few weeks, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies have recaptured key areas in Latakia, Idlib, Daraa, Homs and Aleppo, and are making their way up to the Turkish border, cutting off supply lines and exits for opposition militants along the way.

While analysts and politicians on both sides of the fence have warned that a ‘military solution’ to the Syrian crisis is not feasible, the SAA’s gains are starting to look very much like one. And with each subsequent victory, the ability for the opposition to raise demands looks to be diminished.

Already, western sponsors of the talks have as much as conceded that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will continue to play a role in any future government – a slap in the face to the foreign-backed Syrian opposition that have demanded his exit.

And the long list of deliverables in peace talks yet to come – transitional governance, ceasefires, constitutional reform, and elections – are broad concepts, vague enough to be shaped to advantage by the dominant military power on the ground.

The shaping of post-conflict political landscapes invariably falls to the victor – not the vanquished. And right now, Geneva looks to be the place where this may happen, under the watch of many of the states that once threw their weight – weapons, money, training, support – behind the Syrian ‘opposition.’

So here’s a question: As the military landscape inside Syria continues to move in the government’s favor, will a final deal look very much different than the 2011 reforms package offered by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad?
Assad’s 2011 reforms

In early 2011, the Syrian government launched a series of potentially far-reaching reforms, some of these unprecedented since the ascendance of the Baath party to power in 1963.

Arriving in Damascus in early January 2012 – my third trip to Syria, and my first since the crisis began – I was surprised to find restrictions on Twitter and Facebook already lifted, and a space for more open political discourse underway.

That January, less than ten months into the crisis, around 5,000 Syrians were dead, checkpoints and security crackdowns abounded, while themes such as “the dictator is killing his own people” and “the protests are peaceful” still dominated western headlines.

Four years later, with the benefit of hindsight, many of these things can be contextualized. The ‘protests’ were not all ‘peaceful’ – and casualties were racking up equally on both sides. We see this armed opposition more clearly now that they are named Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and ISIS. But back in early 2012, these faces were obfuscated – they were all called “peaceful protestors forced to take up arms against a repressive government.”

Nevertheless, in early 2011, the Syrian government began launching its reforms – some say only to placate restive populations; others saw it as an opportunity for Assad to shrug off the anti-reform elements in his government and finish what he intended to start in 2000’s ‘Damascus Spring.’

Either way, the reforms came hard and fast – some big, some small: decrees suspending almost five decades of emergency law that prohibited public gatherings, the establishment of a multi-party political system and terms limits for the presidency, the removal of Article 8 of the constitution that assigned the Baath party as “the leader of state and society,” citizenship approval for tens of thousands of Kurds, the suspension of state security courts, the removal of laws prohibiting the niquab, the release of prisoners, the granting of general amnesty for criminals, the granting of financial autonomy to local authorities, the removal of controversial governors and cabinet members, new media laws that prohibited the arrest of journalists and provided for more freedom of expression, dissolution of the cabinet, reducing the price of diesel, increasing pension funds, allocating housing, investment in infrastructure, opening up direct citizen access to provincial leaders and cabinet members, the establishment of a presidential committee for dialogue with the opposition – and so forth.

But almost immediately, push back came from many quarters, usually accompanied by the ‘Arab Spring’ refrain: “it’s too late.”

But was it?

Western governments complained about reforms not being implemented. But where was the time – and according to whose time-frame? When the Assad government forged ahead with constitutional reforms and called for a nationally-held referendum to gain citizen buy-in, oppositionists sought a boycott and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the referendum “phony” and “a cynical ploy.”

Instead, just two days earlier, at a meeting in Tunis, Clinton threw her significant weight behind the unelected, unrepresentative, Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Syrian National Council (SNC): “We do view the Syrian National Council as a leading legitimate representative of Syrians seeking peaceful democratic change.”

And when, in May 2012, Syria held parliamentary elections – the first since the constitution revamp – the US State Department called the polls: “bordering on ludicrous.”

But most insidious of all the catch-phrases and slogans employed to undermine the Syrian state, was the insistence that reforms were “too late” and “Assad must go.” When, in the evolution of a political system, is it too late to try to reform it? When, in the evolution of a political system, do external voices, from foreign capitals, get to weigh in on a head of state more loudly than its own citizens?

According to statements made by two former US policymakers to McClatchy News: “The goal had been to ‘ratchet up’ the Syria response incrementally, starting with U.S. condemnation of the violence and eventually suggesting that Assad had lost legitimacy.”

“The White House and the State Department both – and I include myself in this – were guilty of high-faluting rhetoric without any kind of hard policy tools to make the rhetoric stick,” confessed Robert Ford, former US Ambassador to Syria.

An analysis penned by veteran Middle East correspondent Michael Jansen at the onset of the talks in Geneva last week ponders the point: “The Syrian crisis might have been resolved in 2011 if US president Barack Obama had not declared on August 18th that year that his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad had to ‘step aside.’”

Were the additional 250,000 Syrian deaths worth those empty slogans? Or might reforms, in Syrian hands, have been worth a try?
Domestic dissent, Assad and reforms

The story inside Syria, within the dissident community, still varied greatly during my January 2012 trip. But with the exception of one, Fayez Sara, who went on to eventually leave the country and join the SNC, Syrian dissidents with whom I met unanimously opposed sanctions, foreign intervention and the militarization of the conflict.

Did they embrace the reforms offered up in 2011? Mostly not – the majority thought reforms would be “cosmetic” and meaningless without further fundamental changes, much of this halted by the growing political violence. When Assad invited them to participate in his constitutional reform deliberations, did these dissidents step up? No – many refused to engage directly with the government, probably calculating that “Assad would go” and reluctant to shoulder the stigma of association.

But were these reforms not a valuable starting point, at least? Political systems don’t evolve overnight – they require give-and-take and years of uphill struggle.

Aref Dalila, one of the leaders of the ‘Damascus Spring’ who spent eight years in prison, told me: “The regime consulted with me and others between March and May and asked our opinion. I told them there has to be very serious reforms immediately and not just for show, but they preferred to go by other solutions.”

Bassam al-Kadi, who was imprisoned for seven years in the 1990s, managed to find one upside to reforms:

Speaking about the abolishment of the state security courts in early 2011, Kadi said: “Since 1973 until last May, it was actually a court outside of any laws and it was the strong arm of the regime. All trials held after abolishing this court have taken place in civilian courts. Sometimes the intelligence apparatus intervenes but in most cases the judge behaves according to his or her opinion. Hundreds of my friends who were arrested in the past few months, most were released within one or two weeks.”

This reform, by the way, took place a mere few months before Jordan’s constitutional reforms added another security layer – the state military courts – for which it was promptly lauded.

Hassan Abdel Azim, head of the National Coordination Committee (NCC) which included 15 opposition parties, took a different view: “Our point of view is that such reforms can only take place when violence stops against protestors…But since the regime tries to enforce its reforms, the result will only be partial reforms that enhances its image but not lead to real change.”

The NCC went on to have a short-lived alliance with the foreign-based SNC which fell apart over disagreements on “non-Arab foreign intervention.”

Louay Hussein who headed the Tayyar movement and spent seven years in prison when he was 22 (and recently as well), told me that January: “We consider Assad responsible for everything that’s happened but we are not prepared to put the country in trouble…In March, we wanted what the regime is giving now (reforms). But when the system started using live bullets we wanted to change it and change it quickly. But after all this time we have to reconsider our strategy.”

And the list goes on. The views ranged from dissidents who “like Assad, but hate the system” to those who wanted a wholesale change that was arrived at through a consultative process – but definitely not foreign intervention. Eighteen months later when I revisited some of these people, their views had transformed quite dramatically in light of the escalation of political violence. Even the ones who blamed the government for this escalation seemed to put their arms around the state, as nationalists first and foremost.

Had the conflict not taken on this stark foreign-backed dimension and become so heavily militarized, they may have expended their energies on pushing at the limits of reforms already on the table.
How can Geneva transform Syria?

First on the table in Geneva is the establishment of a transitional process that gets the two sides working on common governance. On a parallel track, demilitarization is on the menu – which basically consists of organizing ceasefires throughout Syria. The transitional team will then work on hammering out a new constitution, with elections to be held within 18 months.

That sounds a bit like the process already underway in Syria in 2011 and 2012.

Certainly, the opposition believes it has a stronger hand today than back in 2011, supported as it is by the UN-sponsored Geneva process. But the difficulties will start the moment decisions need to be made about which opposition participates in the transitional body, if they can even manage to convince the Syrian government – now racking up military victories every week – that it needs to relinquish a chunk of its authority to this new entity.

It is the kind of ‘opposition’ that eventually enters the transitional process that will help ultimately determine its outcome. Look for some Riyadh- and Turkish-backed opponents to be tossed by the wayside during this process.

With the introduction of Russian air power and qualitative military hardware last autumn, the Syrian army and its allies have gained critical momentum in the field.

So why would the Syrian state backtrack on that momentum to give up authority in Geneva? Even the expectation of this is illogical.

There is a growing consensus among Syria analysts that the Americans have ceded the Syrian theater to the Russians and Moscow’s allies. Washington has barely registered any meaningful objections to Russian airstrikes over the past months, apart from some sound bites about hitting ‘moderate rebels’ and not focusing enough on ISIS.

Part of the US problem is that, without any clear cut Syria strategy, it has found itself neck-deep in this crisis without any means to extricate itself from the uncomfortable dependencies of thousands of rebel militants, and the demands of increasingly belligerent allies like Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

They Russians offer that opportunity – like they did in 2013 by taking the Syrian chemical weapons program off the table – and it looks like Washington is grabbing it with both hands right now. It is likely that Moscow waited to intervene in the Syrian quagmire only when it was absolutely sure the US needed an exit – any earlier, and the Americans were still playing both sides and all cards.

For Geneva to move forward, the participants are going to have to make some awkward commitments. Firstly, the batch of Islamists-for-hire that currently makes up the opposition will need to be finessed – or torn apart – to include a broad swathe of Syrian ethnic groups, sects, political viewpoints and… women.

Secondly, all parties to the talks need to agree on which militants in the Syrian theater are going to make that “terrorist list.” This was a clear deliverable outlined in Vienna, and it hasn’t been done. This all-important list will make clear which militants are to be part of a future ceasefire, and which ones will be ‘fair game.’

After all, there can be NO ceasefires until we know who is a designated terrorist and who can be a party to ground negotiations.

I suspect, however, that this terrorist list has been neglected for good reason. It has spared western rebel-sponsors the discomfort of having to face the wrath of their militants, while allowing time for the Russians and Syrians to mow these groups into the ground. Hence the stream of recent victories – and the accompanying timid reaction from Washington.

As the balance of power shifts further on the ground, we may see a much-altered ‘Geneva.’ Will it genuinely beget a political process, will the players at the table change, will the ‘political solution’ be entirely manufactured behind the curtains… only to be offered up to an unsuspecting public as a victory wrenched from a ‘bad regime?’

Because, right now, Syria would be fortunate to have those 2011 reforms on that table, the rapt attention of the global community encouraging them forward, weapons at rest. A quarter million Syrians could have been spared, hundreds of towns, cities and villages still intact, millions of displaced families in their own homes.

Perhaps Geneva can bring those reforms back, wrapped in a prettier package this time, so we can clap our hands and declare ourselves satisfied.

Sharmine Narwani is a commentator and analyst of Middle East geopolitics. She is a former senior associate at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University and has a master’s degree in International Relations from Columbia University. Sharmine has written commentary for a wide array of publications, including Al Akhbar English, the New York Times, the Guardian, Asia Times Online, Salon.com, USA Today, the Huffington Post, Al Jazeera English, BRICS Post and others. You can follow her on Twitter at @snarwani

Source: Sputnik News
The Syrian Army has reportedly destroyed a column of Daesh’s oil tankers in the country’s southwestern province of Sweida.

A column of oil tankers owned by Daesh (ISIL/ISIS) has been destroyed by the Syrian Army and the National Defense Forces (NDF) in Sweida province in the country’s southwest, according to the Iranian news agency FARS.

“A convoy of 16 ISIL oil tankers was targeted by the Syrian Army in the region of Shaghaf located [in the] southeast of Sweida province,” the sources were quoted by FARS said.

According to the sources, all of the oil tankers were set ablaze during the army’s attack, and an array of the convoy’s military guards were killed.

The army and the Syrian National Defense Forces intensified their military operations against Daesh terrorists in Sweida last month.

In particular, the Syrian troops, supported by the NDF, obliterated Daesh positions in the village of Al-Qasr in northern Sweida, sources said. Although the mostly government-held province is predominantly Druze and practices a Unitarian religion which features elements of Christianity, Buddhism and Neoplatonism, many Sunni Muslims have taken refuge in the province, fleeing areas which have been held by Islamist militants in neighboring Daraa Province. They represent a small portion of the 6.5 million internally displaced Syrians who predominantly reside in government-controlled areas of the country.

Meanwhile, the Syrian air force reportedly managed to destroy a spate of Islamic militant strongholds to the east of Damascus, killing dozens of terrorists and wounding many more.

Late last week, Syrian warplanes pummeled the militants’ positions in the towns of Hazarma, al-Nashabiyah and Hosh al-Farah.

Adding to the Syrian army’s anti-Daesh effort is the Russian air campaign, which was launched on September 30, 2015, when more than fifty Russian warplanes, including Su-24M, Su-25 and Su-34 jets, commenced precision airstrikes on Islamic State targets in Syria at the behest of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Source: SANA
Damascus – President Bashar al-Assad gave an interview to the Spanish EFE news agency in which he stressed that the Russians’ values and interests in their policy towards Syria are not in contradiction, noting that as long as the US is not serious in fighting the terrorists, the West won’t be serious.

The following is the full text of the interview:

Question 1: Thank you very much, Mr. President, for your hospitality and for giving the Spanish News Agency EFE the opportunity to understand what is the situation in your country. Okay, on November 14th, the world powers, including Russia and Iran, agreed in Vienna on a timetable for a political solution for the Syria crisis. According to this timetable, the negotiations between your government and the moderate opposition should start on January 1st. Are you ready to start those negotiations?

President Assad: You are most welcome in Syria. Since the very beginning of the conflict in Syria, we adopted the dialogue approach with every party that is involved in the Syrian conflict, and we dealt positively, responded positively, to every initiative that has been launched by different states around the world regardless of the real intention and the genuineness of the people or the officials who started those initiatives. So, we were ready, and we are ready today to start the negotiations with the opposition. But it depends on the definition of opposition. Opposition, for everyone in this world, doesn’t mean militant. There’s a big difference between militants, terrorists, and opposition. Opposition is a political term, not a military term. So, talking about the concept is different from the practice, because so far, we’ve been seeing that some countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United States, and some Western countries wanted the terrorist groups to join these negotiations. They want the Syrian government to negotiate with the terrorists, something I don’t think anyone would accept in any country.

Question 2: Would you be ready to negotiate, to dialogue, with the opposition groups that are right now gathering in Riyadh?

President Assad: It’s the same, because they are a mixture of political opposition and militants. Let me be realistic; regarding the militants in Syria, we already had some dialogue with some groups, not organizations, for one reason, and the reason was to reach a situation where they give up their armaments and either join the government or go back to their normal life, having amnesty from the government. This is the only way to deal with the militants in Syria.

Whenever they want to change their approach, give up the armaments, we are ready, while to deal with them as a political entity, this is something we completely refuse. This is first. Regarding what they call political opposition, you as a Spanish [person], when you look at the opposition in your country, it’s self-evident that the opposition is a Spanish opposition, is related to the Spanish grassroots, Spanish citizens. It cannot be opposition while it’s related and beholden to any other country, to a foreign country, no matter which country. So, again, it depends on which group are we talking about in Saudi Arabia. People that have been made as opposition in Saudi Arabia, in Qatar, in France, in the UK, in the US. So, as a principle, we have to, we are ready, but at the end, if you want to reach something, to have successful and fruitful dialogue, you need to deal with the real, patriotic, national opposition that has grassroots in Syria and is only related to the Syrian people, not to any other state or regime in the world.

Question 3: Will the Syrian delegation attend the conference in New York in case this conference was confirmed, in the next weeks?

There’s no point of meeting in New York or anywhere else without defining terrorist groups

President Assad: It’s not confirmed yet. The recent Russian statement said they preferred it to be, I think, in Vienna. This is first. Second, they said it’s not appropriate before defining which are the terrorist groups and which are not, which is very realistic and logical. For us, in Syria, everyone who holds a machinegun is a terrorist, so without defining this term, reaching a definition, there’s no point of just meeting in New York, or anywhere else.

Question 4: Okay, Mr. President, in your opinion, what can be done to put an end to “Daesh?”

President Assad: This is a very complicated issue, not because of ISIS, because ISIS is an organization. There’s something more dangerous to be dealt with, which is the reasons. First of all, the ideology, something that’s been instilled in the minds of the people or the society in the Muslim world for decades now, because of the Wahabi institutions, because of the Saudi money that’s been paid to support this kind of dark and resentful ideology. Without dealing with this ideology, it’s just a waste of time to say we are going to deal with Daesh or al-Nusra or any other organization that belongs to Al Qaeda. Daesh-Al Qaeda and al-Nusra-Al Qaeda, and you have many other organizations that have the same ideology.

So, this is something that should be dealt with on the long term; how to prevent those Wahabi institutions and Saudi money from reaching the Muslim institutions around the world in order to have more extremism and terrorism spreading around the world. This is first. Second, we have to talk about the short term and dealing with the situation now, Daesh in Syria and Iraq, mainly. Of course, fighting terrorism is another self-evident answer to that question, but we are talking about an ideology and an organization that has unlimited ability to recruit terrorists from around the world. In Syria, we have more than 100 nationalities fighting with the extremists and terrorists,

Al Qaeda and al-Nusra and others. The first step we should take in order to solve this problem is to stop the flood of terrorists, especially through Turkey to Syria and to Iraq, and of course we have to stop the flowing of money, Saudi money and other Wahabi money and Qatari money to those terrorists through Turkey, and the armaments, and every other logistical support. This is how we can start, then later, if you want to talk about the rest, it could be political, it could be economic, it could be cultural, it has many aspects, but for the time being, we have to start with stopping the flow, and at the same time fighting terrorists from within Syria by the Syrian Army and by whoever wants to support the Syrian Army.

Question 5: Who buys the oil from Daesh? Which countries are behind Daesh?

Turkey is the only lifeline for ISIS

President Assad: The Russians last week published on TV pictures and videos of trucks carrying oil crossing the Syrian-Turkish borders. Of course, the Turks denied this, it’s very easy to deny, but let’s think about the reality. Most of the oil in Syria is in the northern part of Syria. If they want to export it to Iraq, that’s impossible, because every party in Iraq is fighting ISIS. In Syria, it’s the same. In Lebanon, it’s very far. Jordan in the south is very far. So, the only lifeline for ISIS is Turkey. Those trucks moving the oil from Syria to Turkey, and Turkey selling this cheap oil to the rest of the world. I don’t think anyone has any doubt about this indubitable reality.

Question 6: Which countries are behind Daesh?

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar are the main perpetrators in the atrocities of ISIS

President Assad: You have states, mainly Saudi Arabia, because both this country and this organization do the beheading, both following the Wahabi ideology, both of them reject anyone who is not like them; not only not Muslim, but who is Muslim but not like them. That Muslim could belong to the same sect, but if he’s not like them, he’s rejected. So, Saudi Arabia is the main supporter of this kind of organization. Of course, you have figures, you have different people who have the same ideology or same belief, they send money privately, but it’s not only who sends the money, who facilitates the reaching of the money to those organizations. How could organizations considered [to be] terrorist around the world like ISIS or al-Nusra have hundreds of millions, to have this recruits, to have a nearly full army like any other state, if they don’t have direct support, source of money, and direct support like Turkey in particular. So, Saudi Arabia and Turkey and Qatar are the main perpetrators in the atrocities of ISIS.

Question 7: Yesterday we saw the mortars falling near Damascus. It seems that this fighting is far from ending. When do you think that the war will be over in Syria?

Pressure Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and this conflict will end in less than a year

President Assad: If you want to talk about the Syrian conflict as an isolated conflict with the same situation now, the same Syrian troops and Syria’s allies, and the terrorists from the other side, we could end it in a few months. It’s not very complicated in either meaning, whether militarily or politically. It’s not complicated. But as long as you’re talking about a lifeline that isn’t being suffocated for those terrorists, having recruits on daily basis, in every sense, money, armaments, human resources, everything, that will make it much longer. Of course it’s going to have a heavy price. But at the end, we are making advancement. I’m not saying that we’re not making advancement. The situation on the military level is much better than before, but again, the price is very high. That’s why I said earlier if you want to end it shorter, and most of the world is saying now they want to see an end to this crisis, okay, make pressure on those countries that, you know them, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, then this conflict will end in less than a year, definitely.

Question 8: Is there any kind of military coordination between the Syrian Army and the bombing attacks of the US-led coalition?

Russian and Syrian armies achieved in a few weeks much better than the US-led alliance

President Assad: Not at all, not at all, not a single connection regarding this sector, let’s say, military sector. That’s why, for more than one year now, they’ve been bombing ISIS, and at the same time ISIS is expanding, because you cannot deal with terrorists from the air. You have to deal with them from the ground, and that’s why when the Russians came and started their participation in the war against terrorism, the achievement of the Russian and Syrian armies in a few weeks was much better than the alliance has achieved during more than a year, and actually didn’t achieve anything to say more, because they were supporting ISIS, maybe indirectly, because it was expanding, and you have more recruits coming. So, we cannot say that they achieved something in reality.

Question 9: What do you think about Obama’s role in this crisis?

As long as the US is not serious in fighting the terrorists, the West won’t be serious

President Assad: Let’s talk about the American administration, because Obama, at the end, is part of the administration. You have lobbies in the United States. From the very beginning, the United States provided those terrorists with different political covers. At the very beginning they called them “peaceful demonstrations” then when they appeared that they are terrorists they said they are “moderate terrorists,” then at the end they have to say that you have ISIS and al-Nusra, but at the end, they’re not objective, they don’t dare to say that they were wrong. They don’t dare to say that Qatar at the very beginning, and then Saudi Arabia, have misled them. This is first. Second, as long as the United States is not serious in fighting the terrorists, we cannot expect the rest of the West to be serious, because they are the allies of the United States, and so far, in brief, let’s say, the role of the Americans in that situation is not to destroy ISIS or the extremism or the terrorism, and Obama said it; he said he wants to contain it. What does it mean? It means to allow you to move somewhere, while not to let you go somewhere else. It’s like to define the border of the harmful effect of ISIS. So, we don’t think that the Americans are genuine in fighting the terrorism.

Question 10: And what about French President Francois Hollande? He has talked about destroying ISIS. Do you think that at some point at the end, the French will cooperate with your government?

President Assad: Look at what he did after the recent shootings in Paris last month. They started, the French aircrafts, started attacking ISIS with heavy bombardments. They said they wanted to fight – he said we’re going to be in a war with terrorism. What does it mean? It means before the shootings, they weren’t in a war with terrorism. Why didn’t they do the same before the war? It means this heavy bombardment is just to dissipate the anger within the French public opinion, not to fight terrorism. If you want to fight terrorism, you don’t wait for a shooting in order to fight terrorism. Fighting terrorism is a principle. It’s not a transient situation where you feel you’re angry and you want to attack the terrorists. You have to have value, principle, in order to defeat it, and it should be a sustainable kind of fighting. So, this is another proof that the French are not serious in fighting terrorism.

Question 11: And what do you think about the EU in general? The EU position on this conflict? Could Europe do something more inside Europe against Jihadist groups?

Europe can play a role, but it is now just a satellite to the US policy

President Assad: Of course they can, definitely. They have the ability, but it’s not only about the ability; it’s about the will. The question that we’ve been asking – not only during the crisis, before the crisis, for the last, let’s say, more than ten years, especially after the war on Iraq: does Europe exist politically anymore, or is it just a satellite to the United States policy? So far, we don’t see any independent political position. Some, you have some cases, let’s say, we don’t put everyone in one basket, and the proof is the relation between Europe and Russia. The United States pushed Europe to do something against its interests, to make embargo on Russia. This is not realistic, not logical. So, of course it can, of course it has interest to fight terrorism like we have the same interest, and the recent shooting and what happened in Madrid in 2004 and 2001 in New York and then in London, and recently in California, this is proof that everyone has interest to do, but who has the will and who has the vision? That is the question that I don’t have an answer about it now, but in the meantime, I’m not optimistic about this will.

Question 12: What has President Vladimir Putin asked of you in return for Russian military aid?

President Putin didn’t ask for anything in return for Russian military aid

President Assad: He didn’t ask for anything in return for a simple reason; because it’s not a trade. Actually, the normal relation between two countries is a relation about mutual interest. The question is what is the mutual interest between Syria and Russia? Does Russia have interest in having more terrorism in Syria? The collapse of the Syrian state? Anarchy? No, they don’t have. So, let’s say in return, Russia have the stability of Syria, of Iraq, of our region – we’re not far from Russia, of Russia, and let me go far beyond that, of Europe. Russia now, in Syria, they are defending Europe directly, and again, the recent terrorist events in Europe is the proof that what’s going on here will affect them positively and negatively.

Question 13: Okay, has Putin asked you to resign your position of president at some point?

Staying in or leaving office depends on the Syrian people’s option

President Assad: First of all, the question is: what is the relation between the president staying in power or resigning with the conflict? That is the first question we have to ask. This kind of personalizing the problem just to be used as a cover to say that “there’s no problem with the terrorism, no country interfering from the outside, sending money and armaments to the Syrian rebels in order to make chaos and anarchy. Actually, this is a president who wants to stay in power and people who are fighting for freedom, and he’s oppressing them and killing them, and that’s why they are revolting.” This is a very romantic picture for, let’s say, teenagers, like a love story for teenagers. Reality is not like this. The question is if it’s part of the solution in Syria. Political solution, that means when I say political solution doesn’t mean Western or external; it should be a Syrian solution. When the Syrian people doesn’t want you to be a president, you have to leave the same day, not the other day. The same day. This is a principle for me. If I think that I can help my country, especially in a crisis, and the Syrian people still support me – I don’t say the Syrian people; the majority of the Syrian people to be more precise – of course I have to stay. That’s self-evident.

Question 14: As a hypothesis, would you accept the possibility of leaving Syria in the future and leaving to a friendly country if this was the condition for a final political arrangement?

President Assad: For me leaving the position?

Question 15: Leaving the position and leaving Syria.

President Assad: No, leaving Syria, I never thought about leaving Syria under any circumstances, in any situation, something I never put in my mind, like the Americans say “plan B” or “plan C.” Actually, no. But again, the same answer: that depends on the Syrian population; would they support you or not? If you have the support, it means you’re not the problem, because if you are the problem as a person, the Syrian people will be against you. What’s the point of the people, of the majority, supporting you, while you are the reason of the conflict? This is the first aspect. The second aspect, if I have a problem with the Syrians, with the majority of the Syrians, and you have the national and regional countries being against me, and the West, most of the West, the United States, their allies, the strongest countries and the richest countries in the world against me, and I’m against the Syrian people, how can I be president? It’s not logical. I’m being here after five years – nearly five years – of the war, because I have the support of the majority of the Syrians.

Question 16: Is it true that Russia will have another military base in Syria?

If there will be another Russian military base in Syria, they would have announced it

President Assad: No, that’s not true, and two days ago, they denied this allegation. If there is, they would have announced it, and we would have announced it at the same time, so no.

Question 17: Are the Iranians planning to build here their own military base?

President Assad: No. They never thought about it, never discussed this.

Question 18: Okay. Is it possible to include President Erdogan in solution for the crisis? What is the role of Turkey in this crisis?

Erdogan is a Muslim Brotherhood ideological person, we don’t expect him to change

President Assad: As a principle, if he’s willing to get away from his criminal attitude that he’s been adopting since the beginning of the crisis by supporting the terrorists in every way, we don’t have a problem. We don’t have a problem. At the end, we will be ready to welcome any help or positive participation from anywhere. That’s in principle. So, whoever’s been complicit against Syria, we don’t havea problem with, but do we expect Erdogan to change? No, for one reason, because Erdogan is a Muslim Brotherhood ideological person, so he cannot go against his ideology. He’s not a pragmatic man who thinks about the interests of his country. He’s working against the interests of his country for the sake of his ideology, whether it’s realistic or not. So we don’t expect Erdogan to change in that way.

Question 19: Mr. President, US Secretary of State John Kerry has announced recently that he will travel to Moscow to see President Putin and the Russian Foreign Minister. Don’t you fear that a kind of trade between the US and Moscow, Ukraine against Syria, could be in preparation?

No Russia-West deal against Syria, Russia’s policy towards Syria is based on values and interests

President Assad: No, because it’s been now nearly five years, and we’ve been hearing that argument, or let’s say, kind of, how to say, idea, by the Western officials, just to make a wedge, a kind of wedge between Syria and Russia. The Russians are pragmatic, but at the same time they are adopting a moral policy based on values and principles, not only on interests, and the good thing in their position is that there’s no conflict or contradiction between their values and their interests. This is first. Second, The Russians know very well that any solution, if there’s a trade for example for the solution, any solution cannot be implemented if it’s not a compromise between the Syrians. So, Russia and the United States and any other country in this world cannot make a deal; we can make the deal with ourselves, Syrians can make a deal with the Syrians, can make dialogue with the Syrians. That’s what the Russians know very well. That’s why they don’t make such mistakes, beside the values that they have.

Question 20: In relation with Turkey again, what do you see about the downing of the Russian aircraft by Turkey? Was it an accident or premeditated?

President Assad: Since the Russian military participation in Syria regarding fighting against the terrorists’ organizations, the situation on the ground has changed in a positive way, and for Erdogan, that would bring his ambitions to failure, and if Erdogan failed in Syria, as he looked at it, that would be his political demise; it is like sounding the death knell of his political future, his ambitions to make Turkey the hub for the Brotherhood in the region by having a Brotherhood government and having following or satellite Brotherhood governments around the world. He thinks the last bastion of his dream is Syria. If he failed in Syria, as he failed in Egypt and as he failed in other places, he will think that this is the end of his career. So, his reaction was an unwise reaction but reflected not his way of thinking, but actually his instinct, his visceral instinct towards the Russian issue. This is the first part of the shooting. The second one, he thought the NATO would help him, and he would bring the NATO to conflict with Russia and the result would be more complicated situation in Syria on the ground, and may be his dream of having a no-fly zone where he can send those terrorists to Syria and they can use them as another state in front of the legitimate state here in Syria. That was his ambition, his way of thinking, as we think, and his plan in Syria.

Question 21: Mr. President, the US holds you responsible for the civil war and the rise of terrorism in Syria. Your enemies blame you for the death of 250 thousand in Syria since the beginning of the war. They also accused you of attacking opposition groups and civilians. How you defend yourself against those accusations?

President Assad: Actually, you cannot shoot yourself in the foot. Now the whole war in Syria, since the beginning of the conflict, was about who is going to bring more Syrians to his side. That was the war from the very beginning. How can you shoot the people and get their support? This is impossible. But at the same time, there is no good war; every war is a bad war. So whenever you have a war – something you should avoid but you cannot avoid – any war, will have civilian casualties, will have innocent casualties. This is a very bad and dangerous aspect in any war. That is why we have to end the war. While to say that the government attacked the civilians, what is the point, what do you get from attacking the civilians? Actually, the reality if you want to go around in Syria, you will be surprised that most of the families of the militants, they don’t live with them, they live under the umbrella of the government, and they get the support of the government, which is another proof that we don’t work against the civilians or kill them, otherwise they would not come to the government’s side. So, those allegations are false allegations.

Question 22: Mr. President, we want you to send a message to the Syrian refugees that have fled the country, many of them fled to Europe and even to Spain. What message do you have for them?

European governments’ embargo and support to terrorists created the migration issue

President Assad: Most of those refugees have contact with their families in Syria, so we’re still in contact with them. The majority of those refugees are government supporters, but they left because of the situation created by the terrorists, the direct threatening, killing, and because the terrorists destroyed the infrastructure, and by the embargo by the West on Syria where the basic life needs are not affordable anymore. So, actually, I don’t have to send them a message to them because they are going to come back when the situation is better. Most of them like their country, they love this country. Actually, the message I would like to send is to the European governments: they brought them, they created the situation, they helped the terrorists, and they made the embargo that has played directly into the hands of those terrorists and helped those people leaving Syria to other countries. So, if you are working for the sake of the Syrian people, as you said, the first thing you do is to lift the embargo. The second thing to do is to stop the flooding of terrorists. So, I think the message to the western governments who helped them going and live in their countries.

Question 23: Would you pardon the terrorists if they lay down their weapons?

President Assad: Of course, that is already happening in Syria. What we called “the reconciliation” is the only real political solution that has reached fruitful solution and positive reality in different places in Syria. The crux of the reconciliation is based on them giving up their armaments as terrorists and the government gives them amnesty or pardon. Of course, this the only way, and this is the good way I think to solve the problem.

Question 24: Okay, two last questions; if you go back to March 2011, would you make any different decisions?

President Assad: On daily basis, as a human, every day you have something you wish you did it in a better way. That is natural, because you have a lot of details, but if we want to talk about the pillars of our policy, it depends on two things. First of all, dialogue from the very first day, although we believed that it wasn’t about political problems at the very beginning, in spite of that we said we are ready for political dialogue, we are ready to change the constitution, we are ready to change many laws, and we did it, we did in 2012, the next year after the conflict has begun. At the same time, from the very beginning we said we are going to fight terrorism and terrorists. There is no way to change either to adopt dialogue or fight terrorism. Anything else is not a pillar, I mean if you talk about the daily practice, of course you have to do a lot of mistakes in daily practice whether my practice and other institutions’ practice or other official’s practice, that’s self-evident, there’s nothing in my mind now, but maybe one of the things I wouldn’t do it again is to trust many officials, Western or regional, Arabs, or like Turkish or others, to trust them, to think that they really wanted to help Syria at some point. This is one of the things that I wouldn’t do gain.

Question 25: How do you explain to your children what is happening in Syria? Would you like them to follow your footsteps?

President Assad: To follow my steps in politics you mean?

Question 26: Yes.

President Assad: I think politics is not a job, and it is not a book you read, and it is not a specialty you do at the university. So, you cannot teach your children to be politicians; you can teach them a job. Actually, politics is everything in life; it is the sum of economy, society, culture, everything, and the fact that you live on a daily basis. So as a result, that depends on the path of your children if they go in that regard. For me, the most important thing is to help them in helping their country, but how? Should they be politicians in the future, or should they be in any other job? This is not a very important issue for me. But I wouldn’t try to influence them; they have to choose their path. I have to explain as much as I can from our reality about our country so that they can read it very well and they can decide which path they want to follow.

Journalist: Thank you very much Mr. President for the interview and for your time.

President Assad: Thank you for coming to Syria

In Conversation with Arnaldo Perez Guerra of Cuban News ‘Prensa Latina’ – Translated by Joshua Tartakovsky
Source: Off-Guardian
Syria lives in an inferno, as the crisis will continue as long as there are countries that support and finance terrorism. The West is intent on destroying the Syrian government in order to create small weak states and finally to guarantee the security of Israel.

We are not only fighting against terrorist groups inside Syria, but also against terrorist groups that proceed from all parts of the world with the support of the most rich and most powerful countries.”

Turkey, that has close relations with the West, supplies arms, money and volunteers, to groups such as the Al Nusra Front and the Islamic State (IS). “The West perceives terrorism as a wildcard that it can pull off periodically”, said the Syrian President Bashar al Assad to the Russian channel RT, adding that the alliance between Syria, Iran, Iraq and the Lebanese movement Hezbollah, which he termed the axis of resistance, “will achieve a defeat of terrorism which is the new tool used to subjugate the region”. Russia has joined the axis decisively.

The United States has been bombing Syria since September 2014 without the consent of Damascus and violated international law. Attacks had no impact on terrorist groups such as the Islamic State but only strengthened it… until now. The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, caused a stir when he sent military help to Syria. For the past several weeks, joint forces of military warplanes of Russia and Syria attacked command posts of terrorists in Palmyra, Aleppo and Homs.

Miguel Fernández Martínez, a Cuban journalist of the Latin American News Agency Prensa Latina is now in Syria as a correspondent:

“Before I was in Central America, covering the elections in El Salvador. I have also traveled to the USA, Puerto Rico, and other parts of Latin America”, he told Punto Final magazine. About the presence in Syria of Russian military advisers, he said that it is provoking a stir among the Western strategists, who are betting on the destruction of this Arab country: “The Western press spares no headlines that run from announcing an “armed invasion” to “territorial annexation”, intended to create a hostile atmosphere and tension. He says that air incursions by Israel against the Syrian territory in August hardly received a mention by the Western Press: “drones attacked the village of al-Koum, located in the province of Quneitra, 67 kilometers southwest of Damascus. A day earlier, an Israeli helicopter fired various rockets at buildings in Quneitra, causing serious material damage”.

The Pentagon and NATO see the presence of Russia in Syria as a failure of their efforts in over for years to topple President Bashar al Assad.

AN AGGRESSION FINANCED BY THE WEST

According to UNICEF, 5.6 million Syrian children suffer from extreme poverty and are forced to move constantly to escape the war zones. Two million refugees live in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey and in other countries in North Africa, while 3.6 million children remain in vulnerable communities. Twenty thousand children have died in this imposed war. “The picture of the Syrian child Aylan Kurdi, lying lifeless on the sand of a Turkish beach, crackles like a whip on the conscience of a hypocritical and silent Europe, that negated to provide protection to its own victims. Europe, the United States, Israel and their armies encouraged this fratricidal war that claimed the boy’s life. Aylan is a reflection of other Syrian children who are dying right now in Damascus, exposed to the terrorist fire of rockets, suffocating from toxic gas in al Foa and Kafraya, or having their heads brutally decapitated in Raqaa, or defeated by the heat and the thirst in the desert, trying to escape the canon fire”, said Fernández.

How does the blockade of the United States affect the Cuban people in communications, Internet and broadcasting? Is it a little bit similar to Syria?
“All of the blockades are harmful because the victims have many needs. Cuba knows this very well, after facing the physical blockade imposed by the USA for over 50 years, which until today caused a loss and damages of more than 833,755 million dollars. In regard to Syria too, the Western powers led by US, France and the United Kingdom, also showed no mercy. They seized their exports, blocked all their contracts, froze their bank accounts. They interrupted their satellite signals, so that the truth does not float to the surface, and then finally, a media campaign intended to destabilize, fragment and destroy the unity of the Syrian people and to undermine its resistance against the terrorist aggression sponsored by the West”.

Tell us about the Government of Bashar al Assad. What was life in Syria like before the intervention by the US and EU?
“The President Bashar al Assad was converted into a scapegoat by those great circles of international powers who seek to repeat in Syria the same they did in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and in other countries in the region. Since long before the beginning of the crisis in 2011, al Assad was under the scope of Washington and its intelligence agencies, destined to become a victim of imperial greed for not bowing to the edicts of the White House.

Since President al Assad came to power following the death of his father, Hafez al Assad, he continued the same pan-Arab policies for regional unity, which have been given much prominence in Syria within the Non-Aligned Movement. Assad did not compromise on the national economy for the sake of the designs of the IMF and followed the example of his father, the most important defender of the PAlestinian cause for the return of the occupied territories by Israel and for the return of million of Palestinian refugees to their place of origin. Syria has always been one of the worse enemies of Israel, who condemned it for its expansionist policies and called for the return of the Golan Heights, occupied illegally since 1967. To that, we must add the solid relationship that exists between Damascus and the Islamic Republic of Iran. They are united by historical ties of friendship and collaboration.

Bashar al-Assad drove the modernization of Syrian society, initiated by his father in the 1970s, defended the concept of the secular state, imposed the law of the state on all religions and the right of coexistence of a multiethnic population, which forms the core of the Syrian people. He also did not allow for the privatization of the oil industry nor of the most important industries of the country. For all these reasons, it was an objective to destroy on the part of the neo-colonial administrations of the U.S. and its European allies”.

What’s actually taking place in Syria: is it a civil war?
“I refuse to accept the thesis that there is a civil war here. It is as false as the sun coming out at night. What is happening here is an international aggression, maintained by NATO, the US State Department and the Israeli intelligence services, who managed to unite the monarchies of the Persian Gulf – Saudi Arabia and Qatar- along with the governments of Jordan and Turkey, to initiate a siege on Syria. The strategies for starting the crisis were clear. They tried to transfer to Syria the effects tested on other countries in what became known as the Arab Spring, a form of destabilization which caused pain in all countries where it was imposed. For this they utilized various methods, one of which was the manipulation of the well-known Muslim Brotherhood, which has already which had already been used in Egypt, Libya, Tunis and in other countries, trying to give religious overtones to protests and on the other hand, using the well-known destabilizing political organizations organized by the US embassy.

It is no secret that prior to the supposed popular demonstrations that took place in March 2011 that initiated the beginning of the conflict, the former north American ambassador in Damascus, Robert Ford, travelled constantly to various provinces, met with leaders of the opposition and financed the protests. In these “popular” demonstrations, there were armed men who fired at the police. Generating chaos and violence, because it was all a well designed plan to generate destabilization and give way for jihadist groups, organized, armed and trained by the West, who were waiting at the borders with Jordan in the south, Turkey in the north, and Iraq in the east. It is also not a secret that the self-proclaimed Free Syrian Army- of which there is now barely a trace- composed in its majority by defectors from the Syrian Army, was financed by Paris, and that in its process of disintegration, a majority of members joined the terrorist gangs of the Islamic State or the Al Nusra Front, which is the armed wing of Al Qaeda in Syria.

One of the other forms employed to attack Syria was through the attraction or recruitment of mercenaries from more than sixty countries, who came instigated by extremist religious leaders who insisted on making a call for jihad or holy war against the legitimate government in Syria. At the end, four years after the initiation of this war of prey, the forces have been concentrated in two large groups. On the one hand, the forces of the Syrian army, with an army of nearly 350 thousand men with arms, in cooperation with the popular militias known as Units of National Defense, and on the other hand, terrorist gangs that continue to generate chaos and terror”.

TERRORISM OF THE ISLAMIC STATE

How did the Islamic State surge and how was it introduced in Syria? Who controls it? It is said that they sell oil to finance themselves and that they have millions of resources…
“The terrorist group the Islamic State, also known in Arabic as Daesh, emerged a little more than a year ago and is a dismemberment of the group Al Qaeda that operated in the territory of Iraq. Since then they began their expansion in the Syrian territory, proclaimed the establishment of a caliphate, whose capital is the city of Raqqa, located a little more than 500 kilometers to the east of Damascus, occupied by armed extremists.

The atrocities of the Islamic State are spoken of every day. They manipulate the religious faith of their members and followers, and form a perverse interpretation of the Koran, dictating the laws of Sharia, and with them, a type of a tyrannical government that includes the imposition of cruel punishments that can range from throat-cutting to stoning, crucifixion and other barbaric forms used to impose the law. Behind them there is an entire network of drug dealers, loan sharks and criminals, most of whom are from the same countries seeking to overthrow Bashar al Assad – and who are trafficking with oil from the oil wells in the occupied zones and with archeological and historical relics that they vandalized from the different villages that they passed.

There is a detail that I do not want to neglect to mention, and that is the manipulation that is being done by the Western mainstream media regarding the occupied territories by the Islamic State in Syria. Many media insist on affirming that over 50% of the territory of Syria is occupied, something that does not correspond with the strict reality. A majority of the population of Syria lives in areas under the control of the government in the center and to the west of the country, along the mediterranean coast. The great part of the areas under the control of the terrorists are desert areas with a low population density; they only have under their control the city of Raqqa, part of the city of Idlib, and a little less than half of Aleppo. Where they are strong in reality is in the control of roads to the east, where they impede the movement of the troops to the battle areas and weaken the domestic economy of the Syrians”.

Whom does it interest if Syria disintegrates?
“I remember that many years ago someone told me that the US and the great powers wish to turn the Middle East into a “large lake of oil”. The West has never looked with respect at this part of the world. Here there are the traces of the colonial time, leftovers of the ancient culture of these people and the bleeding of important reserves of fuel.

In the case of Syria, after it refused to be a lackey of the great Western powers, it was “condemned” for invasion. What they did not take into account was the resistance of the Syrian people, who had the capacity to defend themselves for more than four years of this campaign of terrorist aggression. One of the formulas they tried to apply to destabilize the national unity was sectarianism and trying to create divisions between Sunnis, Shiites, Alawites, Kurds, Armenians, Druze, Christians, Yazidis who form one historical and indestructible amalgam, which is called the Syrian people”.

What kind of difficulties do you have to realize your work as a correspondent of Prensa Latina?
“The same ones encountered by any ordinary Syrian. I lived with them, I suffered the same needs and shared their hopes. I was able to visit battle areas, schools destroyed by the war, refugee camps, and at the end, I tried to feel it all. I have even been able to speak to foreign mercenaries captured by the army and heard from their own lips until where were their external forces committed in this war. I have had the opportunity to interview ministers all the way down to common people. Anyone who can give me his version of the war, and will let me have new arguments to explain the readers, will always be on my agenda”.

HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

What is the humanitarian situation in Syria?
“According to the UN, Syria is suffering the worst humanitarian crisis known in the past 70 years. As a consequence of this war, more than four million Syrians had to seek refuge in other countries and the host countries are Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. Around 11 million are displaced inside the same national territory, and the number of the dead is shocking. Until now, and some say that these are conservative calculations, more than 240 thousand people, of them 50,000 members of the army. In some areas there is famine and the most basic items such as water and electricity, are lacking. It is a very difficult and sad situation”.

How has the government faced the war against terrorism?
“Syria is being defended in a war of international aggression. The Syrian army and the popular militias have borne the weight of this war at a high cost, material and human. On the international coalition led by the US, there is little to say. They have been for over a year “bombing” suspected positions of terrorist groups, and doing what they can to strengthen them. There is evidence that in some locations in the east of Syria and Iraq, aircraft dropped weapons and munitions that are going into the hands of extremist groups. For its party, the Syrian-Kurdish militias known as YPG, also accomplished the hard task in defending its territories in northern Syria, especially in the areas north of Aleppo and in the eastern province of Hasaka, achieving even the expulsion of terrorists from their territories”.

What can you tell us about the crimes against women, children and the elderly and the destruction of cultural properties?
“They have scandalized the international public opinion. They use methods that are truly sadistic, like cutting off the heads of their enemies, or crucifying people in public squares or stoning women until their death. They throw homosexuals from roof tops of building and inflict blows on women who do not wear a veil or go out on their own in the streets. The kids is what hurts most. They closed many schools in the occupied areas and opened colleges where small kids are taught the importance of suicide in order to achieve a purpose, or turn into helpers of the butchers who execute people. The psychological and social done against the children is impressive”.

(*)Originally Published by revista Punto Final (Punto Final magazine), No. 839. Edition: 23 October – 5 November 2015.

The Russian airstrikes granted the Syrian troops a push in its military campaign to break the siege on Kwairis airbase. After a 25-day offensive, three years of merciless siege has ended. Over 300 terrorists were exterminated on the outskirsts of Kwairis airport. Unfortunately there has also been a heavy casualty, with over 80 Martyrs fallen.

Source: SANA
Aleppo, SANA – President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday phoned commander of Kwairis Airport, Major General Munzer Zammam and leader of the military force that broke the blockade on the airport, Colonel Suhail al-Hassan.

President al-Assad told the airport Commander that “You have fought, withstood and you were a good example for heroism, courage and a brilliant image in the history of the Army’s heroism.”

The President added “Your steadfastness, for years, was good evidence on your confidence in the Syrian Arab army and its heroic soldiers and your comrades, so you were confident in the victory and confident that the siege will end sooner or later.”

President al-Assad also told Colonel al-Hassan “Your strength, courage and the sacrifices of heroes who were with you were a good example on the faith of the Syrian Arab Army in defending the Homeland’s soil and an example in sacrifice.”

His Excellency saluted all soldiers and offered condolences on all martyrs, adding that the safety of the soldiers is the top priority of the Syrian leadership.

M.Nassr/Mazen

Source: SANA

Provinces, SANA – The army units repelled the terrorist organizations’ hideouts and hotbeds in many areas across the country, killing and injuring scores of terrorists.

Aleppo

Army reaches Kwairis Airport

Units of the army achieved new progress in the war against terrorism in Aleppo eastern countryside reaching Kwairis airport and contacting with the heroic soldiers who have thwarted hundreds of attempts by ISIS to attack the airport during the latest months.

During the operations carried out to lift the siege on the airport, the army killed hundreds of ISIS terrorists and destroyed their dens and cells with all weapons inside.

The army also established control on tens of villages and strategic hills in the eastern countryside of Aleppo, the latest of which was the village of Sheikh Ahmad near the airport.

Earlier, the army units targeted Jabhat al-Nusra and other terrorist organizations’ hideouts and hotbeds in the neighborhoods of al-Shaar, al-Sheikh Said, al-Jaberiyeh, al-Sukkari, al-Ashrafiyeh, al-Khaldiyeh and al-Ansari in the city of Aleppo.

The terrorist’s hideouts with all weapons, ammunition and equipment inside were destroyed.

Another army unit destroyed 3 terrorist’s vehicles with all terrorists on board and equipment inside them in al-Castilo in the city, according to the source.

Two terrorist’s heavy machineguns- loaded vehicles in al-Tlailat area and a number of the so-called Ahrar al-Sham Islamic Movement’s hideouts in al-Kamari in al-Hader area in the southern countryside of Aleppo province were destroyed in the army continued operations against the Takfiri terrorist organizations.

Meanwhile, terrorist organizations acknowledged on their social media pages the killing of two military leaders of the terrorist organizations of Ahrar al-Sham Islamic Movement Ahmad Abu Khamis and Nawar al-Shahhoud, nicknamed Abu al-Walid in addition to terrorists Abu Salam al-Hamwi and Abu Omar al-Doshka.

Deir Ezzor

Army kills over 25 ISIS terrorists

Army units killed over 25 ISIS terrorists and injured dozens others after targeting their hideouts and concentrations near Deir Ezzor Airport and in al-Mari’yeh and al-Jafra.

Field sources told SANA that the army destroyed a number of the terrorists’ vehicles, including machinegun-equipped vehicles near al-Taim field.

Damascus Countryside

The army units continued advancing in the Eastern Ghouta in Damascus Countryside and established control over al-Mahalej area, located to the south of Marj al-Sulatn, and the farms surrounding it, a military source announced.

The source said the army inflicted heavy losses upon the terrorists and their weaponry in the process.

Meanwhile, other army units established control over areas near Marj al-Sulatn Airport and in a number of areas near Harasta highway, killing and injuring dozens of terrorists and destroying their weaponry and munitions.

Hama and Idleb

The army and armed forces units targeted terrorist organizations’ hideouts in the village of Qalat al-Madiq , 50 km northwest of Hama city, killing at least 4 terrorists.

The terrorists are Hisham Bakkour Taha, Walid al- Sheikh, Mohammad Abed al-Saleh and Haidar abdel-Razaq.

Field sources told SANA Tuesday that terrorist Ahmad Abdel-Karim al-Suh, nicknamed Ahmad al-Karmou, one of the self-claimed leader of the so-called “Gathering of al-Izza” Brigades was killed with all members of his group in an army operation in al-Latamineh town, 35 km northwest of Hama city.

The terrorists Ahmad Ali al-Safan, Khaled al-Mahdi and Ahmad al-Marae were killed, according to the sources, and 3 vehicles were destroyed in Ma’rkabeh village in addition to the destruction of a headquarters and 4 vehicles of the so-called Ahrar al-Sham Islamic Movement in the village of Atshan, where 9 terrorists were killed and others were injured in the army operations.

The army’s air force destroyed positions and fortified sites belonging to Jabhat al-Nusra and “Jund al-Aqsa” and “al-Ezza Battalions” terrorist groups in Lahaya village and Morek city in the northern countryside of Hama province.

Meanwhile, sources on the ground confirmed the death of many terrorists and the destruction of two pickups in an army operation near al-Abboud checkpoint to the south of Morek city.

A Turkish terrorist nicknamed “Prince Ahmad Awad al-Malla” was identified among the dead, in addition to Ahmad al-Khaled, Mohamed al-Omar and Bassam al-Ali.

On the border between Hama and Idleb, the army’s air force launched strikes against gatherings and hideouts of terrorists in Kafr Nabbouda and al-Hbeit towns.

The air strikes left a number of terrorists dead and vehicles equipped with machine guns destroyed.

Homs

The army’s air force launched airstrikes against ISIS positions in Mhein town in the eastern countryside of Homs, destroying dens and vehicles for ISIS terrorists there.

Later on the day, the army clashed with a group of ISIS terrorists who tried to infiltrate Jabourin and Maksar al-Hisan and killed 15 terrorists.

The army also targeted hideoust for ISIS and Jabhet al-Nusra in al-Shumaryeh, al-Hilalyeh, Mahras al-Deik, al-Zabadi, al-Amryeh and Ein Hussein and killed and injured scores of terrorists.

Daraa

Army units destroyed terrorists’ vehicles and positions in separate areas in Daraa al-Balad area in the southern Daraa city.

Two command centers for Jabhat al-Nusra were destroyed in al-Abassiyeh and al-Arbaeen neighborhoods in Daraa al-Balad, which is considered a main passage for the infiltration of terrorists and weapons across the Jordanian border.

Army units also targeted gatherings of terrorists in the area surrounding Qteifan Square and to the south of the Agricultural Bank in Daraa al-Balad.

At least two terrorists were killed in the operations, and those are Mahmoud al-Laki and Mohammad Rizk al-Qteifan.

Sweida

The National Defense Groups in Sweida Province thwarted terrorists’ attempt to attack one of their posts in the province’s eastern countryside, killing two of the terrorists and forcing the others to flee the area.