“Iran will strongly support the Syrian government and army against terrorist groups”: this was stated by the Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, quoted by the Irna agency.
Yesterday Araghchi announced that today he would visit Damascus to “bring the message” of the Islamic Republic’s support for its ally Bashar Al Assad. “It is obvious that the United States and the Israeli regime are in cahoots with terrorist groups in Syria”, as the “Zionist regime, after the recent failure of its objectives, seeks to achieve its goals by creating insecurity in the region through these terrorists,” he said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said today that the United States organized attacks by Syrian rebels in Aleppo and Idlib. “The region is facing new plots, including recent attacks by Takfiri groups against the Syrian government,” Araghchi said, adding: “Recent developments have revealed that these terrorist groups are operating under the command of the United States.”
Bashar Al Assad has promised that he will “use force to eliminate terrorism” in Syria. Quoted by the Sana agency, the Syrian president, whose whereabouts are unknown at the moment, said this in a telephone conversation with a leader of the pro-Russian separatist republic of Abkhazia, in Georgia. According to the leader of Damascus, “terrorism only understands the language of force, and this is the language with which we will crush and eliminate it, with whoever supports and sponsors it”.
Russian airstrike kills Sunni rebel leader in Syria
According to the Lebanese government’s X account, a Russian airstrike killed in Idlib Abu Muhammad al Jolanihead of Hayat Tahrir al Sham (Hts, Commission for the Liberation of Syria) an acronym that brings together the Sunni rebels who attacked in Syria. Russia has carried out five consecutive air strikes against a refugee camp in a neighborhood of Idlib, killing at least one civilian and wounding others: this was announced by the UK-based NGO Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), as reported by the BBC . Previously, the Sohr had said that Moscow’s forces had struck rural areas of Idlib and Hama – just south of Aleppo – where the group leading the rebel offensive “recently took control”. Meanwhile, the government has sent “large reinforcements” to draw up a defense line around villages in the Hama countryside, the NGO added.
Five deaths are reported by an NGO following Russian raids near the university of Aleppo, the Syrian city conquered yesterday by jihadist rebels. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that Russian raids on the Syrian city of Idlib to counter the advance of jihadist rebels have killed eight civilians.
The US version
The United States blames Assad’s dependence on Russia and Iran for the loss of control of Aleppo. “Syria’s dependence on Russia and Iran, combined with its refusal to move forward with the peace process outlined by the United Nations Security Council,” said National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett, “has created the conditions that are checking now. The USA – he later specified – has nothing to do with the offensive, led by the terrorist organization HTS”.
NGO, ‘Damascus no longer controls Aleppo for the first time’
The Syrian city of Aleppo, occupied by pro-Turkish and partly Kurdish jihadist militias, for the first time since the beginning of the war in 2012, “is no longer under the control of the government of President Bashar Al Assad”: the the head of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights NGO, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP.