With 0.47M victims, Syria's Assad lauds allies for reducing "losses of war"

Syrian regime leader says his country foiled “Western” efforts to topple him. Assad claims his side made gains with the direct support of Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and even China.

In this April 21, 2014 photo provided by the anti-regime activist group Aleppo Media Center (AMC), which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a Syrian man holding a girl as he stands on the rubble of houses that were destroyed by Syrian regime forces air strikes in Aleppo, Syria.
AP

In this April 21, 2014 photo provided by the anti-regime activist group Aleppo Media Center (AMC), which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a Syrian man holding a girl as he stands on the rubble of houses that were destroyed by Syrian regime forces air strikes in Aleppo, Syria.

Syrian regime leader Bashar al Assad said on Sunday his country foiled Western designs to topple him but his army had not yet won the fight to end Syria's six-year-old insurgency. Assad also lauded Russia, Iran, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and China for their support.

In a televised address, Assad said without elaborating further that even though there were signs of victory after six-and-a-half years of civil war, the “battle continues, and where we go later and it becomes possible to talk about victory...that’s a different matter”.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a Britain-based war monitor, about 465,000 people have died or are missing in the war up until March 2017. The Syrian Center for Policy Research, an independent Syrian research organisation, the death toll as of February 2016 was 470,000.

The war began with protests against Assad's government. It has since dragged in global and regional powers, allowed Daesh to grab huge tracts of territory and caused the biggest refugee crisis since the second world war.

Shortly after Assad gave his speech, a shell hit the first international fair in the country since the war started, killing and wounding several people.

AP

In this photo released by the official Facebook page of the Syrian regime leader, Bashar al Assad speaks to Syrian diplomats in capital Damascus on August 20, 2017.

Looking to the east

Assad refused any security cooperation with Western nations or the reopening of their embassies until they cut ties with opposition groups.

Speaking before dozens of Syrian diplomats in Damascus, he praised Russia, Iran, China and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement for supporting his regime during the conflict.

“Their direct support – politically, economically and militarily – has made possible bigger advances on the battlefield and reduced the losses and burdens of war,” Assad added.

“Therefore, they are our partners in these achievements on the road to crush terrorism,” Assad said.

Assad’s defiant comments come at a time when his troops and pro-Iranian militiamen are gaining ground across the country under the cover of Russian airstrikes. 

Many countries have ceased calling for him to step down as the international focus turned to battling Daesh first, which declared a caliphate in large parts of Syria and Iraq; its figurative launching base for attacks abroad.

He said Syria will look east when it comes to political, economic and cultural relations.

“Let’s be clear. There will be no security cooperation nor opening of embassies or even a role for some countries that say that they want to play a role in ending the crisis in Syria before they clearly and frankly cut their relations with terrorism,” Assad said.

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Is Russia limiting Assad?

Russia has since last month deployed military police beside army checkpoints in southwest Syria and in Eastern Ghouta near Damascus to help ensure calm in deals it has worked out with Syrian opposition groups.

Yet Syrian jets and artillery struck opposition-held Eastern Ghouta suburbs on Saturday, a day after a Russian-sponsored ceasefire with the main faction of the opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA) agreed a halt of fighting in the last opposition enclave in the capital, witnesses said.

Negotiations are under way with mainstream armed groups and local councils to broker a truce in the besieged northern Homs countryside enclave, where the Syrian opposition has sought intervention to get humanitarian aid to trapped civilians.

Opposition leaders are also calling for the release of thousands of detainees held in regime security prisons.

Many mainstream groups have been skeptical about Moscow’s ultimate aims in Syria and cast doubt on its readiness to put genuine pressure on Assad to abide by local truces.

They also worry that these ceasefire deals are a means for Assad’s army and its allies to redeploy in other areas to recover territory by using firepower freed by the truces.

Although Assad welcomed Russian-brokered local ceasefire deals, he has said his forces retained the right to continue to attack insurgents. The regime brands many of the FSA factions that Moscow has reached truces with as “terrorists”.

He condemned US-inspired “safe zones” which President Donald Trump earlier this year said he hoped to achieve with Russia.

International fair hit

The regime had billed the international trade fair, which opened three days ago, as a “victory” and a sign of renewed confidence in the war-torn nation.

The Mortar News in Damascus Facebook page, which tracks violence in the capital, said the shell hit the entrance of the fair, killing four people and wounding four others.

SOHR said the shell killed six people and wounded 11 but did not say who was behind the attack.

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