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.

by Arthur Avakov. Translation and notes by Tatzhit.
Source:Live Leak
In the media, we often see stories about people from all around the world joining ISIS, for one reason or another. At the same time, almost nothing is known about those who are fighting this plague. We talked to Michel Mizah, a 25-year-old citizen of Russia and Syria, who recently returned from Damascus, where he fought in the “Shabiha” pro-government paramilitary units.

He told us what the Syrians think about the war, President Bashar Assad, the Islamic state, and the future.

– Why did you decide to go to Syria?

– My father is from Syria, and there we still have a lot of relatives with whom we talk to on a daily basis, basically living in two countries at once. We are Christians. My second cousin is fighting in the Syrian army, my uncle and aunt, civilians, were killed in 2012 in Kalamun.

So, each time I saw the news, I was plagued by vague uneasiness… For three years, I wanted to go there, but something always got in the way – wife, job, etc. Only now, everything came together, and I was able to go.

– When the “Arab Spring” had just begun, how did your family react?

– At first, my family sympathized with the protesters. But then it became obvious that the hardliners among the secular opposition work in the interests of Turkey and the Arab monarchies. Plus the course for Islamization was visible early on, and that was a concern.

Like pretty much all normal people, my family, my friends and everyone I know in Syria are strongly against Wahhabis and religious extremism in general.

In Syria, the war is not against Assad, but against civilization itself. ISIS literally keeps slaves, crucifies people, introduces medieval taxes for Christians and kills Shiites and Alawites on the spot…

Do you, personally, want to live according to Sharia law, where you would be killed for smoking or alcohol, and beaten with sticks in the town square for wearing narrow jeans? Neither do we!

And we know that would happen, if Damascus falls. In Raqqa, it’s already like that, the locals tell us. There are still buses traveling, so we know the alternative to Assad very well.

In Damascus, I met a girl, she was only 20 years old, and she spent the last three months in ISIS slavery. One of their commanders bought her as a concubine, and when he died, she was “inherited” by his successor … Relatives barely managed to buy her back.

– Did you know where you’ll be going to in Damascus, was there someone waiting for you?

– Of course. About two months before departure, through a friend of the family, I got in touch with my future unit commander in “Shabiha”. This is the same “Shabiha”, which the UN in 2012, accused of “crimes against humanity”.
In general, over two months, I told him about myself: Who am I, what can I do, why do I want to come, and so on … And he explained what is going on over there, what I would do, and lots more.

I would have joined the army, but my turn for mobilization comes last, since I am the only breadwinner in the family, and you can’t simply go there for a short time. My cousin is there for three years, and he can’t even see his family, because the frontline is constantly very hot.

– Your militia, did it include only Syrians, or was it an international team?

– People come from Lebanon and Iran, because they understand that if Syria falls, they are next. They send us military advisers and weapons … The whole “Shiite axis of evil” supports us!

As for the rest of the world, I have not seen fighters from there… It seemed to me that the Embassy of Syria in Russia does not approve of such things. Perhaps this is due to the rumors about the so-called “Russian Legion”, which a few years ago was hired by some company in St. Pete to fight for Assad [officially, to guard some pipeline or other – ed.]. But when they arrived in Damascus, the Russian diplomats protested, and the “legionnaires” were sent back home, a few were prosecuted for mercenary activities [- it’s legal by Russian law to fight in a foreign war, but not to make money from it – ed.].

In general, joining the fight for Syria is only possible if one has Syrian citizenship, or there is some agreement between governments. But the Islamists – they flock to attack Syria from all corners of the world.

– What were your impressions of Damascus?

– I arrived at the international airport of Damascus, and the first thing I saw was a great number of soldiers and militiamen. But civil life goes on, in downtown people walk the streets without fear, despite periodic mortar attacks.

In Christian areas, the situation is slightly more complicated, but there stores and such are still working. My squad was based in one such area, in the north-eastern outskirts of Damascus, opposite the opposition-controlled district of Duma, which is entirely occupied by the Islamists. It was always populated by religious radicals, so no one was surprised when it turned out to be a hotbed of militant extremism.

However, by the time I arrived, the area had long been under siege and the enemy had no way to escape, so my war was relatively easy, compared with what is happening in the north of Syria…

– When they say “militia”, one imagines a motley crowd, differently dressed and armed. Is that how “Shabiha” is?

– No, of course. On the first day, I was issued standard army gear, got mission briefings, and went to our positions. There is plenty of food, too – well, if you can eat much with all the stress…

The cooking is all local cuisine, meat, beans, various sweets. A pack of cigarettes is given per two days, but they are really strong, so that it is enough. Plus locals brought us food every day, “Shabiha” and the army are their last hope.

Perhaps, in some towns, where the locals have gathered all uniforms and weapons available, contacted the army and said that their unit is now part of the militia, there may be some supply shortages, but in Damascus everything is great in that respect. But the militia are not paid, instead Assad gives all sorts of benefits to their families.

– What is the overall relationship between the army and militia?

– Militia obeys the army. The opposition likes to paint “Shabiha” as barbarians, which the government merely nominally controls, and militia use their status only to rob and rape … This has nothing to do with the truth.

Of course, civilians may be killed by government troops. Unfortunately, that is the reality of fighting in the city. Sometimes such things are unavoidable, especially since Islamists hide behind civilians. But if we really killed everyone who supported the enemy, the Duma district would have been destroyed long ago – simply leveled with tanks in a single day, like some hotheads have been saying for a long time already.

But Assad doesn’t want that – quite the contrary, he even continues to pay salaries to municipal officials in ISIS-controlled towns. Because we don’t want genocide, our task is to reunite the country. Therefore, before each mission, we were told that we should not shoot at civilians under any circumstances. If a civilian dies, there is always an investigation and, if necessary, a court-martial.

– Can you give more detail about the relationship between “Shabiha” and the army?

– Army assigns missions, provides all the necessary intel, support, and so on. Provides us with instructors.

With the permission of Assad, “Hezbollah” is training militias where the army cannot. Perhaps, in remote settlements, militia aren’t always “on call”, but if they do not communicate at all, their unit would not be considered part of the militia.

In other words, the militia is a natural extension of the army. Communication is done via unit commanders. All requests are reviewed by the army and the civil administration, if necessary. Nothing is done on a whim.

For example, if the militia decides that it is necessary to demolish a house for their defense plan, we must first obtain a permit from the city authorities. Of course, occasionally there is no time, but then you have to make a full report after the fact.

As for [the men themselves], my commander fought in the army for 4 years a sergeant, was wounded and went to the militia. In general, the militia is staffed by volunteers, and those who fight with distinction can be transferred to the army.

– How many people were in your unit?

– 21 of us all told. Despite the fact that the units should be formed on from local residents, we had three Christians from Aleppo, two Druze guys who fled to Damascus from ISIS and joined the militia, and one Lebanese volunteer.

There’s a very strong atmosphere of military brotherhood, so we did not have any religious differences, hazing, or anything like that. Everyone knows who our enemy is, and all the anger goes there. Among us, there were a couple people who at the beginning of the “Arab Spring” took part in anti-government demonstrations, but now Assad for them is something like a prophet. And it’s like that everywhere.

Before I went to Syria, I thought all those slogans in Soviet war movies, like “For Motherland! For Stalin!” were just fiction for TV. But in Damascus, I personally saw people charging into battle shouting “God! Syria! Bashar!”, “Our blood and soul for you, Bashar!”, and so on.

– What is the main problem of the militia?

– The militia did not emerge from great love [for citizen soldiers], but because of the need for something to fill the gaps, when in the early years of the war the army lost most of the men.

Now they can maneuver, and we keep the positions taken. For example, we spent a week sit in a building which more or less “wedged” into the Islamist positions.

I do not know which organization those extremists were – perhaps ISIS, or maybe some other one. It is not really important, because they are constantly migrating from one organization to another anyway.

– So, you got sent to the frontline on your first day? Did the commander test your abilities?

– Yeah, a funny story happened there… Back in the day, I took [ROTC course] in Syria, where I was designated a sniper. But while we were going to our position, it became clear that I’m not a great shot – I could not hit a can, standing on a barrel about a hundred meters away from me.

As a result, I became a common rifleman, or a private, I guess. There are no ranks in small units, you’re either the commander or a private.

So yes, in the battle from the very first day, or rather, from the first night, as in the day it heats up to over 40 degrees [Celcius], and it is hard to do anything.

Until dark, our main goal was not to let the enemy sleep, so they would not be too active at night.

Fighting begins at about 6-7 pm, when the heat begins to subside. However, as my commander told me, even the heaviest fighting in our district is nothing compared with what is happening in northern Syria, where Islamists have heavy artillery, tanks and suicide trucks with explosives.

We had 6 people killed in a week, and that was because of their own mistake, and there, 300 people may be killed per night.

– And how did those 6 people die?

– On the second day of my stay, they went to help a neighboring unit, which seized a house from the Islamists. They entered the building after the militants had already fled.

All the instructions say the engineers go first, because the Islamists always mine buildings before they leave … They forgot, made a mistake, and blew up.

– Did you know where are your enemies were from?

– On the night of the third day we captured one militant, he was a Syrian from Aleppo, who admitted that he was with ISIS. In the neighboring district, he killed one Armenian family – a woman and her four-year old daughter, cut their throats. He climbed into their apartment when he was running from militia.

Then he apparently tried to flee to the Duma district, but as he wasn’t local, he simply got lost and came to our positions. If someone is worried about his fate – he is alive, we handed him over to the military police.

– And how did you know that he was from Aleppo?

– Accent. Arabic is something like the Latin of the Middle East. It is understood by all, but all speak in their local dialects.

And when the man talks in proper, pure Arabic, he is either highly educated, or no Syrian or Arab at all, and knows the language from Koran. That’s how I identified the immigrants from the post-Soviet countries and North Caucasus among the militants… There are quite a lot, and they are the most brutal.

– Charge into machineguns in the open?

– That too …. The night after we took that prisoner, the Islamists tried to take our house. It was those guys from post-Soviet countries, yelling “Allahu Akbar” and something about the prowess of Islamic warriors, running across the open into our gunfire.

Maybe they were drunk or on drugs, but general in the caliphate does not approve of either, punishes it up to death penalty. That day we were attacked by 30-40 militants, of whom we have killed about a dozen.

– Was it scary?

– Mostly, I was scared on arrival. Or rather, you do not feel fear, but some desolate excitement. All the senses are blocked, and you just sit there like a deaf man. But when shooting begins, there is no time to be afraid.

However, occasionally there are people who only understand they are not capable of fighting once on the frontline. During the battle, they go into complete stupor, unable to do anything, not hearing anyone… They are immediately sent to the rear, so that they help, for example, in the hospital. This is not a big deal, the main thing is that one had the courage to come and help in the first place.

– What were you doing to keep your composure?

– Tried to talk about what I’m doing, silently or aloud, it helps to focus. For example, I say to myself: “Here is a running enemy. It is necessary to check the safety, aim and shoot. … The battle is over, I need to report to commander.”

This greatly helped, and after the fight I had the come-down – smoked a lot, and my hands were shaking.

And in the very first night, when I first arrived, I even started to panic, because the militants hit our house with an RPG, and my shoulder got hit by a brick that flew off the wall. I started screaming that I was wounded, the entire squad started running around… That’s how I learned the Arabic version of the Russian proverb “lies like Trotsky.” I still have the bruise from that hit.

– In general, were there moments when you were not on edge?

– A whole day and a half. Then, on the fifth day, I learned about the tunnel war. It turns out that while we were defending our house, the Islamists were digging an underpass right under our noses.

I do not know how long it took them – maybe a month or more – but one “sunny” day, we found that the Islamists emerged behind us and captured a four-story building, the tallest in the area, as all the rest were two or three floors.

Of course, there were a sniper and machine gunners in there, and we all ended up in a small encirclement. If desired, one could run 200 meters through gunfire to get out, but no one wanted to.

Instead, we got in touch with the army HQ, and were told they would find a solution. It took them a day and a half, and then they brought a BMP [armored vehicle], an assault team, and two more militia squads like ours.

First, the building was turned into Swiss cheese for two hours with a heavy machine gun, and then we charged in from all sides.

As a result, our commander had a finger on his hand shot off, and we killed eight Islamists. There were more of them in the building, but the smarter ones fled back into the tunnel. And then my military exploits ended, because it was time to go home…

– Good you got rescued in time. The locals you managed to talk to – what do they think about the war?

– All are very tired of it, but they support Assad, because they understand that if the Islamists win, they will have a hard time.

ISIS take no prisoners – if they surround you, you do not think about giving up, only about taking as many of them as you can with you.

Even secular opposition groups are now using the [government] amnesty offer, to be saved from the Islamists. Only the poorest of the poor are still on the side of the religious extremists.

The majority of the refugees, in spite of the latest news, remain in Syria. The government is trying to avoid creating camps, and settles them in administrative buildings instead.

The richest refugees travel to Iran and Lebanon, to continue their business there, and those that are poorer tend to go to the European Union.

Despite the huge debt and total collapse of the economy, Syria allocates large sums of money for the social sector. Builds children’s centers, schools, hospitals and so on. Salaries are paid even to those officials who were working in ISIS-controlled towns.

Wahhabis are building their own state, but due to lack of their own professionals they have to rely on Syrian officials to maintain occupied cities. Some officials are cunning enough to draw salaries from both Damascus and Raqqa. In general, Assad is doing everything to prove that Syria, unlike the terrorists, takes care of its citizens.

– You’re talking about ISIS, but in fact there are many different groups – don’t locals make that distinction?

– And what difference does it make who cuts your head off?

The military keep track of it, because it is important for them to know with whom they enter into a temporary truce. Also historians and scientists, for their research…

Well, there is also Free Syrian Army, but they are no more than a tenth of the rebel forces. Locals don’t want much to do with them either. All their demands are being gradually met as it is. To counter the Islamists, Assad already needs to establish dialogue with the people.

And FSA demand the resignation of al-Assad – why, if everyone knows that he will win any sort of a fair election?

– Do the locals make the distinction between local and foreign Islamists?

– Yes, that one is important. Foreigners spit on local custom. It went so far that even the Bedouin tribes near Raqqa, who at first invited ISIS in, now run to Assad, as they cannot live under the new regime.

But the main flow of refugees starts when Islamists take over new settlements. The militiamen that I spoke to believe that our mission in life is to cleanse the world from the big pile of shit that got gathered in our homeland. They only regret that it came to Syria, and not to Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States, who finance them.

– What is the general attitude toward the Saudis?

– Even before the war, no one of the Gulf liked them because of their medieval way of life… In Latakia, for example, there is one café with a sign: “Dogs and Saudis not allowed.”

Saudi Arabia is disliked for its savagery, backwardness and barbarism, as well as cultureless pride based on vast oil reserves. In turn, the Syrians consider themselves the heirs of ancient civilizations.

– And what do they think about Russia?

– Supporters of Assad thought well of Russia since the Soviet times, and now even more so. But if ISIS know you’re a Slav or you have a Slavic wife, then you will be killed for sure, because after the war in Chechnya Russia is considered one of the main enemies of radical Islam.

– I see … Was it hard to say goodbye to the squad?

– I was ashamed. I have somewhere else to go, and they do not. I became friends with all of them already. Next year, I want to make another trip. When I went there, I thought the enemy will be like an immortal horde. It turned out that the capabilities of Islamists are exaggerated. They die like everyone else.

– Do you think the war will not stop in a year?

– Of course not. To stop it, the state needs to take control of the Turkish border, and the Jordanian border by the Golan Heights… If the influx of Islamists is stopped, we will quickly deal with the ones in country.

All Syrians know that Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the US are helping the Islamists with weapons and money, buy their oil. Supposedly, they help only the “secular opposition”, but everyone understands that all of the supply goes into a common pool, and FSA distributes those weapons to other groups. [Some FSA units have been described as “mostly consisting of a warehouse on Turkish border, getting rich on re-selling CIA weapons” – ed.]

At the same time, Syria can lose only if a no-fly zone is established, Turkey openly supports the Islamists, and “anti-ISIS” coalition openly attacks Syria.

– Do you feel the change, coming back to Russia?

– I do not understand how you live here so normally. Sleep quietly and dream normally – over there, one can only go to sleep when absolutely exhausted. I hate those that throw firecrackers now. And always look where I step, looking for landmines.

But anyway – I could not just sit and not make even a small contribution to the fight against ISIS. Cousin says that in the north, every day is like “Saving Private Ryan”. Huge losses on both sides, no pity for each other, we do not always take prisoners, the sides even cut off ears from dead enemies for souvenirs …

– Would you like to say something for your colleagues, or to the Islamists?

– For the militia and soldiers: all normal people support you guys. And for the militants … I guess it’s a bad thing to end the interview by saying “You will all be killed?”. Well, one needs to be a complete moron to fight on the side of the Caliphate …

I guess I can tell a joke. The soldiers catch an Islamist. He asks to shoot him at 13.00. They ask why at this time? He says that he needs to make it to lunch with Prophet Muhammad and the martyrs.

The officer says shoot him at 14.15. They ask: Why? He says: just in time to wash all the dishes.

P.S. Michel refused to be photographed – he said he does not want to be identified by extremists.

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Interview taken by Arthur Avakov and originally published at MK.RU