Russian Strikes in Syria Pay Off

The New Observer
November 24, 2015

The Syrian army has made such sweeping territorial advances against ISIS in Syria since the Russian air force started attacking US-backed “rebels” that a million Syrian refugees have been able to return home, it has emerged.

News of the successes achieved by the Russian air force attacks came with two recent interviews, one with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and another with the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Jaafari.

Speaking in an interview with the Chinese Phoenix Television Channel, President al-Assad said Russian airstrikes have turned the tide in Syria and the Syrian army is now gaining ground at the expense of the terrorists.

“Recently, after the participation of the Russian air forces in fighting terrorism, the situation has improved in a very good way, and now I can say that the army is making advances on nearly every front,” he said.

He pointed out that over the past year, terrorists—backed by the US and its regional allies, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar—had managed to capture a large amount of Syrian territory and had gained more recruits from all over the world, despite the so-called US-led coalition’s “airstrikes.”

The reason for the success of the Russian attacks lay in their cooperation with forces on the ground, something which the US has, of course, refused to do, out of Jewish lobby-driven hatred of the Syrian government.

“You cannot fight terrorism through air raids. You need troops on the ground. The Americans only fight through their airplanes,” Assad said.

“What about the Russians? They are depending on the Syrian troops on the ground. They are cooperating with us. So, the difference, the main difference, is that the Americans don’t cooperate with any ground troops, while the Russians are doing this.”

He pointed out something that some honest Americans have also had to admit—that in fact there is no tangible “opposition group” in Syria—there are just militants and terrorists.

“It [opposition] is a political term, not a military term. Whenever you hold a machine gun, you are a militant; you are a terrorist, whatever you want, but you cannot call “opposition” people who hold machine guns or any kind of armaments,” he said.

Assad also revealed that, in cooperation with the Russian government, his government has been in discussion with some of the non-ISIS militants in an attempt to kick-start a peace process. It was, however, he said, impossible to make concrete political steps before defeating the extremists.

“What we are doing in parallel besides fighting terrorism, we need to make dialogue, but the concrete steps should follow at least a major defeat of the terrorists and the government takes control of a major area that has been captured by the terrorists,” he said.

Russian airplanes have destroyed over 1,000 ISIS tankers with crude oil and Sukhoi Su-34 bombers also hit a terrorist-controlled oil refinery some 50 kilometers south of Raqqa, the unrecognized capital of the Islamic State terrorists. It is notable that the US “air strikes” have never once targeted ISIS-controlled oilfields, which provide the main source of funding for that terrorist organization.

Earlier, the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Jaafari, said that the Syrian army’s advances had allowed around one million Syrians to return to their liberated home cities.

“This is what happens when it comes to Syrian-Russian collaborative military action against terrorists and exchange of intelligence between Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Russia. This has resulted in terrorist groups’ retreat from [their positions in] many areas, which allowed one million internally displaced persons to return safely to their homes,” he told journalists.

Jaafari also said that the Syrian anti-ISIS campaign had a positive impact on security worldwide and in Europe. It is in the “entire world’s interests” because “every time the Syrian army engages a foreign terrorist, it saves dozens of innocent lives who might be threatened whenever [the foreign terrorist] returns home.”