Syrian President close to defeating rebels

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad is “two steps away” from a complete and final victory in an armed confrontation with rebels,” Fars News Agency quoted the chief military adviser to Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Yahya Rahim Safavi, as saying on Wednesday. Addressing students in Iranian Kerman, the military said “the war in Syria is a war of the United States and Israel waged by their Turkish and Arab puppets”. More than 40,000 mercenaries have been recruited, trained, armed and paid for in Arab and European countries, Safavi noted. Most of them infiltrate in Syria across the borders of Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan and are in this way or another linked with Al Qaeda, the general added. According to Safavi, at the present moment, “the United States, Israel, their Turkish and Arab allies have been defeated in this war”. “After three years of confrontation, terrorists in Syria have been practically defeated from the point of view of military prospects, they have lost major positions and regions, ceding them to the Syrian army,” the military stressed. The Iranian general also pointed to the importance of the future Geneva 2 conference for a political settlement in Syria. Russia, China and Iran would be on the side of the legitimate government of Damascus at the negotiating table, the general said, adding that these countries were providing political support to Syria on the international arena.