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Daesh to be defeated despite West’s support: US senator

Syrian government forces gesture and inspect the site as they arrive to a destroyed bridge on a road between the Kabajeb and al-Shula on the southwestern outskirts of Dayr al-Zawr on September 8, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

As the Syrian army backed by its foreign allies achieves more gains in several fronts to crush Daesh and other militant groups, negotiations brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran between the Syrian government and the so-called opposition are underway in Kazakhstan’s capital of Astana to find a breakthrough to stop the six-year-old conflict in Syria. Meanwhile, the United States has reportedly decided to spend billions of dollars to purchase weapons from East Europe to arm militants, who are wreaking havoc in the Arab country. To discuss the issues, Press TV interviewed Richard Black, a Virginia state senator from Broadlands, and Jonathan Fryer, a writer and lecturer from London.

Black said the Western powers and their regional allies have allowed the core of Daesh to escape from the Iraqi city of Mosul into the Syrian city of Raqqah and then, when Raqqah was in trouble, the US-led coalition allowed them to escape to Dayr al-Zawr, but it will not take a long time for Syria and its allied forces to defeat the Takfiri terrorists.

“ISIS (Daesh) will be a force for another four or five months, but they will be a force that is absolutely on the retreat. They will be defeated very quickly,” the senator said on Thursday night.

The Syrian recapture of Aleppo was a monumental achievement and their victory in Dayr al-Zawr is considered a brilliant campaign for the Syrian government and a “catastrophic defeat for ISIS,” he explained.

“There are still ISIS strongholds. They are controlled by various powers and the US-led coalition and they are going to hold out,” but, the war would be decided on the battlefield and what is happening in Astana is a reflection of the reality on the ground, he said. 

Russia and Iran along with Turkey have brokered several rounds of peace talks between Syria’s warring parties in the Kazakh capital. The Astana discussions produced a memorandum of understanding on de-escalation zones in Syria that sharply reduced fighting in the Arab country.

A picture shows a general view during a fifth round of Syria peace talks on July 5, 2017, in Astana. (Photo by AFP)

The commentator further accused certain regional and international players of initiating the war in Syria to pursue their policies.

“This was not an internally-generated war. This was a war that was generated by NATO, by the US, the UK, France, the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation states, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia; so, literally, Syria a nation of 23 million has faced two thirds of the world’s wealth and military power.”

Pointing to the role of Iran in the Syrian war on terror, he noted that “there is no doubt that Iran has played a tremendous role” in defeating various terrorist groups in the war-ridden Arab country.

The Syrian government and army have time and again lauded the support provided by Iran, Russia, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement in the fight against terrorism inside Syria.

Fryer, the other guest on the show, expressed hope that the talks in the Kazakh capital of Astana would produce something positive.

He underlined the need for negotiations to go beyond the Syrian government and various opposition forces, saying “it is very important that Iran as well as Russia and Hezbollah and other players in the region are part of the solution.”

“The Syrian government has indeed received a lot of help from Iran, Hezbollah and more recently from the Russians as well,” the lecturer said.


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