Beirut: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday described the attack that took control of large swaths of territory as an attempt to redraw the regional map in line with American interests.
His comments came in a phone call with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian as Syrian and allied Russian warplanes launched deadly raids on rebel-controlled areas.
Russia and Iran both support Assad and say they will help his forces fight after Aleppo, the second largest city in Syria, falls from government control.
Syria has been at war since Assad suppressed pro-democracy protests in 2011. Since then, the conflict has attracted foreign powers and killed 500,000 people.
A statement from Assad’s office quoted him as saying, “The terrorist escalation reflects long-term goals of dividing the region, fragmenting its countries, and redrawing the map in line with the goals of the United States and the West.”
Pezeshkian pledged continued support and said: “We hope that the Syrian country, with your strength, power and steadfastness, will pass this stage successfully and victoriously.”
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and its allied factions took control of Aleppo over the weekend, except for neighborhoods controlled by Kurdish forces, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
They also seized Aleppo International Airport.
“God willing, we will continue to enter Damascus and liberate the rest of Syria,” one rebel commander said. Agence France-Presse.
Deadly attacks
The Observatory said that Syrian and Russian air strikes on several areas in Idlib Governorate in the northwest of the country on Monday killed 11 civilians, including five children.
The Observatory said that other raids in Aleppo killed four civilians, two of them children, adding that the air strikes also targeted a neighborhood inhabited by a Christian majority.
Unconditional support
Russia intervened directly in the Syrian war for the first time in 2015, and President Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Pezeshkian pledged on Monday to provide “unconditional support” to their ally, according to the Kremlin.
In its reading of the phone call between the two leaders, the Russian side said that they “stressed the importance” of coordination with Türkiye.
Türkiye on Monday rejected any suggestion of “foreign interference.”
Limited benefit
While the fighting is rooted in a war that began more than a decade ago, much has changed since then.
Millions of Syrians have been displaced, and about 5.5 million of them are now in neighboring countries.
Most of the participants in the initial anti-Assad protests are either dead, in prison or in exile.