Syria’s Assad says losing battles does not mean war is lost

Bashar Al Assad’s remarks during an appearance at a Damascus school were his first since a string of regime losses, particularly in Idlib province.

President Bashar Al Assad delivers a speech on Syria's Martyrs Day during an appearance at a school in the capital Damascus on May 6, 2015. SANA/Handout/AFP Photo

Damascus // Syrian President Bashar Al Assad said on 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.

“Today we are fighting a war, not a battle. War is not one battle, but a series of many battles,” he said at a rare public appearance 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.”

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

In the past few weeks, rebel forces including Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Jabhat Al Nusra have seized Idlib’s provincial capital, the strategic town of Jisr Al Shughour, 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 Mr Al 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.”

While Mr Al 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 Shughour.

“The army will arrive soon to these heroes trapped,” he pledged.

He 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 criticised 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.

Elsewhere on Wednesday, at least 16 members of the Syrian Kurdish security forces were killed in an ISIL attack on a base in the Hasakeh province in the north-east, a monitor said.

“There was a large explosion at dawn today in Hasakeh city caused by ISIL car bomb attack on a base belonging to the Kurdish internal security forces,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Britain-based group said ISIL militants opened fire on Kurdish forces after the blast, prompting fierce clashes.

All the attackers were killed, the Observatory said, without specifying the number of ISIL fighters involved in the assault in the provincial capital, where Kurdish and regime forces share control.

ISIL holds large areas of the countryside around Hasakeh and has attacked it on previous occasions.

Syrian state media reported a “terrorist car bomb” in Hasakeh city had left several dead and wounded, without giving a toll, and said the militants had also bombarded the city.

*Agence France-Presse