THE Syrian defence minister, General Fahd Jasim al-Furayj, gave an interview in Damascus on February 4th explaining the Israeli air raid, the ‘armed gangs’ and the strategy of the Syrian Army and government.
He said: ‘As every Syrian and Arab citizen knows, Syria, under President Bashar al-Assad, leads the resistance axis in the region. This axis confronts the Zionist-US scheme which functions to implement what Israel primarily wants.
‘Through this scheme they tried, from abroad, to bring Syria down or to twist Syria’s arm. They kept trying to do this for decades. The 2006 aggression on Lebanon was part of this scheme. The occupation of Iraq and the US threat to Syria after that occupation were also part of the scheme.
‘When they failed to bring Syria down or twist its arm from abroad, they started thinking of bringing Syria down from within. The Zionist, American, and Western circles and all those who move in Israel’s orbit planned to blow Syria up from within.
‘Apart from the tools, this plan needs financing. Regrettably, the funds came from Arab regimes. I believe that every Syrian and Arab citizen knows this.
‘The tools are the armed gangs. They brought them, in thousands, from outside Syria, gangs that adopt Salafi and Takfiri thought (holding other Muslims to be infidels).
‘They also secretly promoted Salafi and Takfiri ideology in Syria through groups like Al-Nusrah Front and the other groups whose names we have been hearing.
‘They call themselves extremists or fundamentalists – terms that I believe must not be associated with Islam.
‘The conspiracy was hatched to recruit conspirators from inside Syria. We, as military, know that any external war is a hundred times easier than an internal war. Formidable technological resources, military resources – the armed gangs might not have heavy weapons but they have good military capabilities – and financial resources were mobilised to destabilise Arab Syria.
‘What do the armed gangs target now? If we put the Armed Forces and the security forces aside, we find that they target the infrastructure.
‘How is this related to reform? How is electricity related to the demands they are making? What is the meaning of cutting water supplies to an entire governorate or to villages or neighbourhoods?
‘What is the purpose of this?
‘So, they target citizens in their infrastructure: water, electricity, food supplies, closure of roads, and attacks on schools, civilian and military hospitals, pharmaceutical factories, state establishments, and all private establishments.
‘Does this serve citizens? Does it serve reform? Who stands to gain from this destruction, killing, and mutilation of bodies? Yes, mutilation of bodies.
‘The media knows this, and there are documents to prove it. Every citizen knows this. In every region the armed men entered, they either kicked those who refused to join them out of their homes or killed them and mutilated their bodies.
‘So this is an operation targeting the entire country, sabotaging the entire country, and obstructing citizens’ daily life.
‘They closed roads. If the state wants to send food supplies to any governorate, village or neighbourhood, it needs an army to secure the road and deliver the supplies.
‘It is our duty as a state and Armed Forces to deliver these supplies to citizens by all means. But sometimes the convoys are looted on the way and the vehicles destroyed by explosive devices planted on the roads or in ambushes.
‘So we are chasing these gangs to secure the arrival of food supplies. But we, as Armed Forces, cannot secure thousands of kilometres of roads every day whenever we want to send food.
‘The gangs sometimes manage to seize food supplies, fuel and other material for the citizens, and this is why these materials sometimes do not reach their destinations at the scheduled times to meet the citizens’ needs.
‘The same can be said about the establishments that provide citizens with water, electricity, medical treatment, and so on.
‘A mortar round might be fired at one of these establishments from 2km or 3km. Electricity cables might be cut, and electricity towers might be blown up in remote areas, resulting in power outages.
‘I cannot have a military unit protecting every lamppost, every school, every hospital or every public or private establishment. This is impossible; no country in the world can do it.
‘So we are pursuing these gangs, which seek to sabotage the country and everything related to citizens’ lives.
‘We work by all means to prevent these gangs from realising their objectives. I would like to give an example from our reality. In normal circumstances, before the implementation of the conspiracy started, if we had five, six, or 10 thieves horrifying people in a governorate, they would create much confusion and panic.
‘Now we are talking about hundreds or perhaps thousands of Salafis and Takfiris spreading in the governorates.
‘And they are supported from abroad. Without this foreign support they cannot continue. They are supported militarily, financially and logistically by superpowers, in fact.
‘We, therefore, assure citizens that we will do everything we can to protect our economic and services establishments and get food supplies through to citizens.
‘We also hope that citizens will cooperate with us by informing us where these gangs are located and where they move.’
He continued: ‘Our main mission in the Armed Forces is to protect the border and to confront a Zionist enemy occupying the Golan, our land.
‘We might also be targeted by other attacks from our other borders. Chasing armed gangs is basically not the mission of the Armed Forces.
‘But when large numbers of people, through the conspiracy, were recruited in armed gangs to destroy the country, it was our duty to kick these gangs out of every city, village, or suburb they entered.
‘When the armed men enter any place, they displace the inhabitants, leaving only those who are loyal to them. The ones who want to fight alongside them stay, but the honest citizens who have nothing to do with these gangs leave, if they are not killed by them.
‘We enter this region, village, or neighbourhood and purge it of the armed gangs. What concerns us after that is the return of the inhabitants to their homes. We allow them to return safely. We as Armed Forces cannot stay permanently in every village, neighbourhood, and place. After we secure the region and people return, we leave.
‘But, regrettably, some people – small numbers of them – facilitate the re-entry of armed men secretly to this region in small successive groups, along with their weapons. The region becomes ready for them to re-control, and they announce their control of the region, forcing the Army to return to secure it.
‘So here I underline the role of the citizens. Citizens must confront these armed gangs courageously.
‘They cannot be neutral. There can be no neutrality when someone is destroying my home, destroying state establishments, blocking the arrival of my food, and putting me in harm’s way.’
Al-Furayj then spoke about the Israeli bombing raid. and booby-trapping every house, everything in the house, including door handles and walls, as well as streets.
‘The party that benefits from the plan that is being implemented by the terrorists, or from what the terrorists are doing, is Israel, the Israeli enemy.
‘The Israeli enemy knows that we have Air Defence capabilities covering the entire area of Syria. These Air Defence capabilities prevent Israeli planes from infiltrating Syrian airspace. If there were infiltrations years ago, this gap was covered through measures that the General Command took. Now, no infiltration can take place anywhere in Syria without us knowing about it.
‘Our media and citizens know that for six or seven months now, no single day has passed without the armed gangs targeting Syria’s Air Defence capabilities.
‘Why? Air Defence includes radars, electronic warfare, anti-aircraft guns and artillery – all these work in an integrated manner. So why did they target and focus on the Air Defence capabilities and tried by all means either to destroy them, bring them out of the battle, or control them in one way or another?
‘Air Defence capabilities are technical capabilities. If they were unable to reach these capabilities, which are spread out across Syria and located in remote areas far from where other forces are stationed, they bombed them with mortar rounds from afar. Any such round might put radar out of order because radars are installed in the open; you cannot install them underground.
‘When the command noticed that there was much focus on the Air Defence capabilities, it decided to collect them and put them in safe areas so that they cannot be targeted by mortar fire or reached by the armed gangs.
‘We knew that Israel had ordered the armed gangs to focus on the Air Defence capabilities and bring them all out of action.
‘After we collected these systems, we were left with gaps in radar coverage and Air Defence coverage in some directions. The systems were distributed in a technical way so that radars, as my eyes, would immediately detect any hostile air target anywhere in the country’s airspace. When this air target appears, I deal with it using the Air Defence capabilities in the region where the infiltration takes place.
‘But after we collected these systems, we were left with gaps. The armed gangs and the Israelis know these gaps. There was certainly coordination between the armed gangs and the Israeli enemy to target the scientific research centre in Damascus northern suburbs.
‘The armed gangs had attacked this centre dozens of times in an attempt to control and destroy it.
Why was it targeted? Because this centre serves the Armed Forces and our defence plan. When they failed to control the centre, Israel decided to use its aircraft to carry out this aggression directly.
When their tools failed, the Israeli enemy flagrantly targeted this centre.’
