Jun 4, 2014

DAMASCUS, Syria — During the second part of a lengthy interview with Al-Monitor in Damascus, a senior Syrian official said that the reality on the ground, the power balance and the military developments in the field were important, and in this regard, the Syrian authorities were content and reassured.

The official, who requested anonymity, started by analyzing the Syrian map: “Each line extending from our southern border to Aleppo is under the control of Syrian troops. The militants received overwhelming blows in Homs and Qalamoun. Today in Aleppo, any military expert understands the meaning of controlling the central prison and the air force intelligence site in the city. Everybody recognizes that Aleppo is almost militarily fallen. Of course, cleansing it of militants and terrorists may need time. But the battle there, according to military battlefield logic, has already been decided and its results are clear.”

In response to claims that the regime's opponents have provided the government a great service with their behavior and mistakes, he smiled, saying, “This is absolutely true. Suffice it to mention two things: first, their collaboration with Israel and their openness to several contacts with it. That really helped us in our media battle in the Arab world. Second, and more importantly, the significant dominance by extremists and terrorist groups over those forces.”

Al-Monitor asked about allegations that the regime released fundamentalist prisoners to facilitate the formation of these groups. The Syrian official answered calmly: "It is true that a number of fundamentalists were released as a result of amnesty decrees for prisoners by the leadership in Syria during the years of strife. But the domination of extremist groups on the armed groups and their aspiration to control Syria preceded any act by us. Don’t forget that the battle with these extremist groups began more than 30 years ago. It didn’t break out in 2011. [It broke out] before the conflict [in our region] turned into open military battles. [Al-Qaeda leader] Ayman al-Zawahri was clear in his recorded message when he raised the slogan, 'The glory of the East starts in Damascus.' …

"Of course, we worked through all media, political and diplomatic means, to expose the extremist danger on us and on all our surroundings and the world. This is part of our natural and legitimate response to the terrorist plot. You only need to read the message by Zawahri to an extremist group that he disagreed with, namely, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). He told them that one of the reasons why he disagreed with them is that they came out into the open. Al-Qaeda wanted to keep its battle secret until it was strong and could gain control. This is proof that the first way to fight them is to reveal their true image and highlight their presence and their danger, and that’s what we did."