SYRIAN President Bashar al-Assad says the coalition of Iran, Russia, Syria and Iraq will succeed, that it must or the entire region will be destroyed.
‘This coalition must succeed; otherwise we will see the destruction of the entire (Middle East) region,’ Assad said in an interview with the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network, broadcast on Sunday. ‘We are certain that this coalition will succeed,’ said the Syrian president.
Iraq, Iran, Syria and Russia have formed an intelligence-sharing centre in the Iraqi capital in their fight against Takfiri terrorists wreaking havoc mainly in Syria and Iraq. Assad said the coalition member states, especially Iran and Russia, are well-experienced in combating terrorism. He expressed optimism that the coalition ‘will achieve outstanding practical results’ in their joint military, security and intelligence-sharing cooperation.
Assad said: ‘We as states have a vision and have expertise. All of us have suffered because of terrorism. Iran and Russia have suffered different kinds of terrorism. When these countries unite against terrorism and fight it militarily and in the areas of security and information, in addition to other aspects, this coalition will, no doubt, achieve real results on the ground, particularly that it enjoys international support from countries which do not have a direct role in these crises and in this region.
‘This is with the exception of the West, which has always sought to support terrorism, colonisation and stood against peoples’ causes, most countries of the world feel the real danger of terrorism. There have been recently successive statements from countries which support this coalition. That is why I believe that this coalition has great chances of success.’
In earlier remarks, Assad said: ‘Concerning the changes that you see happening in the Western world, part of this is based on their statements to the media. ‘For us in Syria, we cannot take these statements seriously, regardless of whether they are positive or negative, for many reasons. I believe that our Iranian brothers, including Iranian officials, share our view on this. In other words, both of us do not trust Western officials.
‘As to their recent statements about a transitional period and other issues, I would like to be very clear: no foreign officials might decide the future of Syria, the future of Syria’s political system or the individuals who should govern Syria. This is the Syrian people’s decision. That’s why these statements mean nothing to us.But what is absolutely certain is that Western officials are in a state of confusion and their vision lacks clarity.
‘At the same time, they are overwhelmed by a sense of failure concerning the plans they drew and didn’t achieve their objectives. The only objective of course is what you mentioned in your question, i.e. destroying Syria’s infrastructure and causing a great deal of bloodshed. We have paid a heavy price, but their objectives were subjugating Syria completely and replacing one state with another. They aimed at replacing this state with a client state which implements the agendas dictated by foreign governments.’
The Syrian president added: ‘At the same time, the lies they propagated at the beginning of the events in Syria, in order to promote their positions to their audiences, have started to unravel. You cannot continue to lie to your people for years. You might do that for a limited period of time. Today, as a result of technological advances in the field of information, every citizen in every part of the world could know part of the truth.
‘These parts have started to come together in the minds of their people, and they have found out that their governments have been lying to them concerning what has happened in Syria. They have also paid the price either through terrorist operations, the terrorism that started to affect those countries or through the waves of migrants coming to their countries, not only from Syria, but from different countries in the Middle East. All these factors started to effect a change, but I would like to stress once more that we cannot trust Western positions regardless of whether they were positive or negative.’
He was asked if he knew ‘specifically what the West wants from Syria?’ Assad replied: ‘They want to change the state. They want to weaken Syria and create a number of weak statelets which can get busy solving their daily problems and internal disputes with no time for development or extending support to national causes, particularly the cause of Palestine, and at the same time ensuring Israel’s security. These objectives are not new. They have always been there, but the instruments of dealing with them differ from time to time.’
Russia launched its military campaign against terrorists operating in Syria on September 30 upon a request from the Damascus government. The Russian air raids on Daesh bases come as the US and its allies including the Persian Gulf Arab kingdoms – which have actively supported the foreign-backed war in Syria since 2011 – have been involved in airstrikes against alleged Daesh militants in Syria without authorisation from the Syrian government.
Assad also confirmed that Russia’s air strikes are being conducted in coordination with Syrian military officials. Assad said the Syrian government had warned Western and regional supporters of Takfiris against the consequences of their backing of terrorism. Terrorism knows no borders,’ he said, adding that most leaders of terrorist groups operating in Iraq and Syria ‘came from Europe’.
Asked about Saudi Arabia’s insistence for the Syrian president to step down, Assad replied: ‘The issue of political system and/or powers-to-be in this country are an internal affair.’ He said Saudi Arabia is not well-placed to speak about democracy in other countries. ‘This country is the worst example and the most outdated on the global scale. Therefore, it cannot speak about these issues in the region,’ Assad added.
He also slammed meddlesome remarks by top Turkish officials, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. Turkey has been against the government of the Syrian president and support fighting against Syria. The Syrian president also said that he favoured ‘Syrian-Syrian dialogue’ as the only solution to the crisis in his country. The self-evident issue in the entire world is that no country talks with terrorists,’ he added.
Assad noted that war in his country will continue as long as ‘certain’ governments push ahead with their support for terrorists. The foreign-sponsored conflict in Syria, which flared in March 2011, has claimed the lives of more than 250,000 people and left over one million injured.
• Days of bombardment do not appear to end as the Saudi air force keeps dispatching warplanes to strike even more targets across Yemen, which is facing a deteriorating humanitarian situation. According to the latest media reports on Sunday, Saudi jets pounded the province of Sana’a, targeting residential areas in al-Jaraf, a car gallery and a military college.
In the northwestern province of Sa’ada, reports said at least three civilians lost their lives in as many as ten Saudi airstrikes targeting food carriers in the district of Ghamar. Saudi aircraft also bombarded a market in the Haydan district of Sa’ada, where at least three people died. Fatalities, including a woman and children, were also reported in similar attacks on the Razih district of the province.
Ta’izz, located in the southwestern part of the impoverished Arab country, was another province that once again came under the airstrikes. Furthermore, the provinces of Ma’rib, in central Yemen, as well as Hajjah and Dhamar, in the west, were hit by the Saudi airstrikes. On October 2, Julien Harneis, the representative of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Yemen, said ‘with every day that passes, children see their hopes and dreams for the future shattered’.
It was late March when Riyadh launched its aerial campaign against Yemen. The fatal military aggression, which has not received a United Nations mandate, aims to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement and restore power to Saudi ally and fugitive former Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi.
Six months of violence in Yemen, UNICEF said, have killed ‘at least 505 children’. More than 700 kids have been also injured in the airstrikes, and over 1.7 million others are at risk of malnutrition. ‘Their homes, schools and communities are being destroyed, and their own lives are increasingly threatened by disease and malnutrition,’ the UNICEF official stated.