In a rare public appearance, Syrian President Bashar Assad said Wednesday that setbacks are a normal part of war and do not mean the conflict is lost, in his first comments after several regime defeats.

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"Today we are fighting a war, not a battle. War is not one battle, but a series of many battles," he said on Syria's Martyrs Day.

"We are not talking about tens or hundreds but thousands of battles and... it is the nature of battles for there to be advances and retreats, victories and losses, ups and downs."

Assad speaking in Damascus

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Assad's remarks at an appearance at a Damascus school were his first since a string of regime losses, particularly in northwestern Idlib province.

In the past few weeks, rebel forces including Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front have seized Idlib's provincial capital, the strategic town of Jisr al-Shughur, and a military base in the region.

The losses in the province, along with rebel advances in the south, have worried some in government-held areas and prompted speculation about the strength of the regime's forces.

But Assad urged his supporters to remain confident in the face of setbacks.

He warned against "the spread of a spirit of frustration or despair at a loss here or there".

"In battles... anything can change except for faith in the fighter and the fighter's faith in victory," he said.

"So when there are setbacks, we must do our duty as a society and give the army morale and not wait for it to give us morale."

"Psychological defeat is the final defeat and we are not worried," he added.

Assad said while the army was waging a relentless war across swathes of territory and gaining ground, there were occasions when the fighters had to "retreat back when the situation warrants".

Assad speaking in Damascus.

While Assad did not explicitly acknowledge his army's losses in Idlib, he paid tribute to regime forces that remain holed up in a hospital building in the now-rebel-held town of Jisr al-Shughur.

"And now, God willing, the army will arrive soon to these heroes who are besieged in the Jisr al-Shughour Hospital to continue the battle to defeat the terrorists," he pledged.

Battles have been raging around the hospital on the southwestern outskirts of Jisr al-Shughour, where army forces and allied fighters have been holed up since the insurgent offensive began, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

Government forces have endured a series of setbacks on the battlefield and Islamist fighters have edged closer to Assad's stronghold in the coastal areas.

Fighting continued on Wednesday between government forces and Islamist fighters in government-held Latakia, the heartland of Assad's minority Alawite community.

Syrian state media said the army made advances in the northern countryside of Latakia and killed many Nusra fighters.

Assad also had harsh words for Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, calling him a "butcher" and comparing him to the Ottoman ruler who ordered the 1916 executions that Martyrs Day commemorates.

Syria's government has regularly criticized Turkey and other opposition supporters, accusing them of backing "terrorism".

More than 220,000 people have been killed in Syria since March 2011, when the conflict began with anti-government demonstrations that were met with a regime crackdown.