DAMASCUS: Syrian President Bashar al Assad said in remarks aired on Thursday that his ally Russia deterred the West from launching a wide-scale air attack on his war-ravaged country last month.
“Fortunately, it has been avoided, not by the wisdom of the American leadership, but by the wisdom of the Russian leadership,” Assad said in an interview with Russian broadcaster RT, without giving details.
Last month, separate US-backed and Israeli airstrikes, on positions manned by the Syrian army and
their allies and the Hizbullah movement, raised fears of a new front in the war.
In recent months, Assad’s forces, supported by Russian air power, have regained vast territory from rebels and militants, including IS.
Assad told RT that he believes his forces have nearly won the seven-year war.
“The only problem left in Syria is the SDF,” he said, referring to the US-backed Kurdish-led militia, the Syrian Democratic Forces, which played a major role in fighting IS.
“We’re going to deal with it by two options: the first one we started now opening doors for negotiations, because the majority of [the SDF] are Syrians.
“If not, we’re going to resort... to liberating those areas by force,” Assad said.
Despite government forces’ recent territorial gains, parts of the country are still under the control of rebels in northern and southern Syria.
The Syrian president said it’s the duty of the army to liberate all of Syria because “this is our land, it’s our right and our duty to liberate it and the Americans should leave somehow they are going to leave”.
At least five people were killed on Thursday when a motorbike rigged with explosives went off in the northern rebel city of Jarabulus, activists reported. So far, there has been no claim of responsibility. — dpa
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