President Bashar Assad told the Syrian regime needs more time to win the civil war in remarks broadcast Wednesday that amounted to an recognition his forces are fighting to contain the confrontation challenge.
Over the past few months, the military has progressively been extended thin fighting on multiple fronts against rebels attempting to oust Assad’s authoritarian regime. His forces have been incapable to appease the insurrection as it spread to the capital Damascus with important clashes that started in July and to Syria’s biggest city, Aleppo, a few weeks later. Concurrently, the military is struggling in a string of other cities and towns around the country.
Assad, speaking in a television interview with a pro-regime private station, charged his difficultnesses in defeating the rebels on what he claimed are outside forces fueling the insurrection.
“We are struggling with a regional and global war, so time is needed to win it,” he stated privately owned Dunya television, which is majority possessed by Rami Makhlouf, a cousin of Assad and one of Syria’s wealthiest men. “I can sum up all this explanation in one sentence: we’re moving forward. The situation is practically better but it has not been decided yet. That takes time.”
The comments were discharged in an advance excerpt of the interview to be aired by Dunya in full later in the day.
Taken together with his comments to a visiting Iranian official over the weekend, Assad demonstrates willingness for an even more prolonged conflict, even with more than 20,000 estimated dead in more than 17 months of fighting. He stated the Iranian official his regime would carry on the fight against the rebels “whatever the price.”
Rights groups monitoring the violence now report the deaths of 100 to 250 or more Syrians on daily basis, though the figures are impossible to severally affirm. The fighting has been intense enough to force hundreds of thousands to flee their homes, seeking refuge elsewhere in the country or in neighboring nations.
Assad responded with a hearty laugh when told by the interviewer that rumors about his whereabouts often made the rounds among Syrians.
“I am here with you in the studio in Damascus,” he said.
Assad has rarely appeared in public since four of his top security officials were assassinated in a July 18 rebel bombing in Damascus.
Appearing confident and relaxed, Assad paid tribute to the Syrian people, saying they stood steadfastly behind him and his armed forces.
But he criticized the leaders of onetime ally Turkey, saying some of them were “ignorant.”
Syrian officials routinely cite neighboring Turkey, along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as among the rebels’ main supporters, providing them with money and weapons.
“The fate of Syria, I tell the Syrian people, is in your hands,” Assad said. “This broad base of the Syrian people protects the country.”
He also paid tribute to government forces.
“If we ask ourselves which segment (of Syrian society) did more than all others in enabling this country to stand fast, it is undoubtedly the armed forces.”
