After gains in northern Syria, Assad predicts total victory

Syrian President Bashar Assad congratulates his forces for consolidating control over the entire province of Aleppo in northern Syria, pledging to press ahead with a military campaign to achieve complete victory “sooner or later.”

Assad, who rarely appears in public, pledges in a televised address that the onetime economic hub of Aleppo, the provincial capital, will “return stronger than it was before.”

“This liberation does not mean the end of the war, and does not mean the end of the schemes nor the end of terrorism or the surrender of enemies,” Assad says. “But it means that we rubbed their noses in the dirt as a prelude for complete victory and ahead of their defeat, sooner or later.”

President Assad of Syria: the battle for Idlib and Aleppo will continue until terrorism is destroyed and stability is restored pic.twitter.com/skmHQ9Iyoo

— The'Nimr'Tiger (@Souria4Syrians) February 17, 2020

The address comes amid an ongoing military advance in northwestern Syria that has sparked a humanitarian catastrophe and after government troops consolidated their hold over the key province, capturing over 30 villages and hamlets in the western countryside in a single day. The advance secured the provincial capital that had for years remained within range of opposition fire.

Syrian troops have been on the offensive since December in the area and nearby Idlib province, biting bit by bit at the crowded rebel enclave, home to over 3 million people. The offensive displaced more than 900,000 people, sparking one of the largest humanitarian crises in the nine-year war.

— AP