Alwaght- President Bashar al-Assad said on Thursday more than 5,000 terrorists have entered Syria through the Turkish border over the past two months.
Syrian president, in an interview with Cuba's official news agency Prensa Latina, said that Turkey and its allies, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, lost most of their cards on the battlefield in Syria and now they are left with the Aleppo card.
They “worked hard … to send as much as they can of the terrorists – the estimation is more than 5,000 terrorists – to Aleppo… during the last two months, in order to recapture the city…, and that didn’t work,” he added.
President Assad also referred to gains by the Syrian forces against the terrorists, saying, “Actually, our army has been making advancement in Aleppo and the suburbs of Aleppo in order to encircle the terrorists.”
He further noted that terrorists active in Syria enjoy backing from around the world.
There are more than 100 nationalities participating in the war on Syria, he said, adding that the terrorists receive “logistical support” from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey under the supervision of the Western countries, mainly the US, France, the UK and some other allies.
Elsewhere in his comments, Assad hailed the Russian air campaign in support of the Syrian armed forces, saying it has helped the Syrian soldiers advance against terrorists.
Since the beginning of the US-led collation airstrikes, ISIS has been expanding rather than shrinking, Assad said, emphasizing that the terror group “has only started to shrink when the Russian support to the Syrian Army took place.”
Explaining the priority of the Syrian army in its anti-terror battle, the Syrian leader said that the focus is on fighting ISIS, al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and Jaish al-Islam terrorist groups.
Touching on the role of the US or the Security Council in the Syria crisis, he accused the word body of operating as “an American arm, where they can use it the way they want, they can impose their double standards on it instead of the Charter.”
Asked about the insistence of the US and its allies on the ouster of the Syrian government, Assad said “only the Syrian people can say who should come and go, who should stay in his position, who should leave, and the West knows our position very well regarding this.”
Syria has been gripped by foreign-sponsored militancy since March 2011.
UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict. The UN has stopped its official casualty count in the Middle Eastern state, citing its inability to verify the figures it receives from various sources.
