Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has defied the global outcry over his horror bombing campaign by insisting his forces must ‘clean’ Aleppo of terrorists.It came amid fears of another weekend of air-strikes against Aleppo by Russian and Syrian pilots could send the death toll soaring yet again.
Assad, speaking to a Russian publication, warned Aleppo is now a ‘springboard’ for a massive military push against so-called ‘terrorist’ organisations.
Hundreds have died in recent weeks as Russian and pro-Assad forces have forced a bloody stranglehold around as many as 250,000 starving and trapped civilians.
Britain is heading the outcry over Assad’s campaign against Aleppo and Russia’s backing for it whilst the regime insists the campaign wil help defeat the “terrorists”.
Assad said: “It’s going to be the springboard. . .to move to other areas, to liberate other areas from the terrorists . This is the importance of Aleppo now.
“You have to keep cleaning this area and to push the terrorists to Turkey to go back to where they come from, or to kill them.
“There’s no other option. But Aleppo is going to be a very important springboard to do this move.”
Aid workers say Syrian and Russian forces killed over 150 people in eastern Aleppo this week.
Air strikes killed 13 people on Thursday in the rebel-held Aleppo districts and much of the city now lies in ruins from constant bombardments.
Syrian government forces have encircled the eastern half of Aleppo, besieging over a quarter of a million people who they say are being used as human shields by “terrorists”.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has also sparked a diplomatic row with Russia by calling on mass demonstrations the bombings to take place outside the London Russian embassy.
Syria’s civil war, now in its sixth year, has killed as many as 400,000 people and left millions homeless.
Assad is backed by the Russian air force, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Shia militias from Arab neigbours, while Sunni rebels seeking to oust him are backed by Turkey, the United States and Gulf states.
Assad also told the Russian newspaper that the country’s civil war had become a conflict between Russia and the west.
“What we’ve been seeing recently during the last few weeks, and maybe few months, is something like more than cold war,” Assad said.
“I don’t know what to call it, but it’s not something that has existed recently, because I don’t think that the west and especially the United States has stopped their cold war, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union.”
Dictator Bashar al-Assad, 51, is a son of Hafez al-Assad, who was President of Syria from 1971 to 2000 and who also resorted to violence to crush oposition.
Damascus-born Assad went to Syrian medical school and served in the Army as a doctor and became heir apparent after his elder brother died in a car crash in 1994.
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