Assad ‘confident’ of win

He warns Israel on payback for airstrikes

In his taped television interview, Syrian President Bashar Assad has a warning for Israel, promising “a strategic response” to any airstrike.
In his taped television interview, Syrian President Bashar Assad has a warning for Israel, promising “a strategic response” to any airstrike.

BEIRUT - Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview broadcast Thursday that he is “confident in victory” in his country’s civil war, and he warned that Damascus would retaliate for any future Israeli airstrike on his territory.

Assad also told the Lebanese TV station Al-Manar that Russia has fulfilled some of its weapons contracts recently, but he was vague on whether this included advanced S-300 air-defense systems.

The interview with Assad was taped Tuesday, according to the Beirut news director of Iran’s English-language Press TV.

The comments were in line with the forceful and confident message the regime has been sending in recent days, even as the international community attempts to arrange a peace conference in Geneva, possibly next month. The strong tone coincided with recent military victories in battles with armed rebels trying to topple him.

photo

AP/SANA

Syrian government soldiers patrol at the Dabaa air base in Homs province Thursday as Syrian President Bashar Assad said he was “confident” of victory over rebel forces.

The interview was broadcast as Syria’s main political opposition group appeared to fall into growing disarray.

The international community had hoped the two sides would start talks on a political transition. However, the opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, said earlier Thursday that it would not attend a conference, linking the decision to a regime offensive on the western Syrian town of Qusair and claiming that hundreds of wounded people were trapped there.

Assad, who appeared animated and gestured frequently in the TV interview, said he has been confident from the start of the conflict more than two years ago that he would be able to defeat his opponents.

“We are confident and sure about victory, and I confirm that Syria will stay as it was,” he said, “but even more than before, in supporting resistance fighters in all the Arab world.”

Assad has said he would stay in power at least until elections in 2014, but he went further in the interview, saying he “will not hesitate to run again” if the Syrian people want him to do so.

Taking a tough line, he also warned that Syria would strike back hard against any future Israeli airstrike.

Earlier this month, Israel had struck near Damascus, targeting suspected shipments of advanced weapons purportedly intended for the Lebanese Hezbollah, a close ally of the Assad regime. Syria did not respond at the time.

Assad said he has informed other countries that Syria would respond next time. “If we are going to retaliate against Israel, this retaliation should be a strategic response,” he said.

Russia’s S-300 missiles would significantly boost Syria’s air defenses and are seen as a game-changer, but Assad was unclear whether Syria has received a first shipment.

Earlier Thursday, Al-Manar had sent text messages to reporters with what it said was an excerpt from the interview.

The station quoted Assad as saying Syria had received a first shipment of such missiles. The Associated Press called Al-Manar after receiving the text message, and an official at the station said the message had been sent based on Assad’s comments.

In the interview, Assad was asked about the S-300s, but his answer was general.

He said Russia’s weapons shipments are not linked to the Syrian conflict. “We have been negotiating with them about different types of weapons for years, and Russia is committed to Syria to implement these contracts,” he said.

“All we have agreed on with Russia will be implemented and some of it has been implemented recently, and we and the Russians continue to implement these contracts,” he said.

Earlier this week, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said Israel considered the S-300s in Syrian hands a threat and signaled it was prepared to use force to stop delivery.

Israel had no official comment Thursday.

However, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday called Israel “the most threatened state in the world. Around us are tens of thousands of missiles and rockets that could hit our home front.”

Three major Israeli newspapers reported Thursday that Israel’s national security adviser recently told a group of European ambassadors that Israel’s red line regarding the S-300s was the point at which they become operational. The Israeli official, who requested anonymity, said that the S-300 was a “very advanced and complicated system” and that different functions could become operational at different times.

The S-300s have a range of up to 125 miles and can track and strike multiple targets at once. Syria already possesses Russian-made air defenses.

Military experts in Israel worry that Assad could use the system to deny Israeli warplanes the relatively easy access they now have to the skies above Syria and Lebanon.

Israel worries also that a battery of S-300s could be used to strike commercial airliners flying to and from the country’s main airport outside Tel Aviv.

The U.S. and Israel had urged Russia to cancel the sale, but Russia rejected the appeals.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov this week that the U.S. is concerned about Moscow’s continued financial and military support for the Assad regime, said State Department spokesman Jen Psaki.

Meanwhile, Assad dismissed Syria’s political opposition as foreign-directed exiles who don’t represent the people of Syria.

The Syrian National Coalition has been meeting for more than a week in Istanbul to expand its membership, elect new leaders and devise a strategy for possible peace talks.

Coalition members got bogged down in personnel issues for much of the time. On Thursday, they announced that under current circumstances, they will not attend peace talks.

In the TV interview, Assad reiterated that the Syrian government is ready to attend in principle, though he said any agreement reached there would have to be put to a referendum.

The coalition’s decision not to attend the talks could torpedo the only peace plan the international community has been able to rally behind, although prospects for its success appeared doubtful from the start.

Psaki said she hoped it was not the coalition’s final word on the Geneva conference. She said Robert Ford, the U.S. ambassador to Syria, is in Istanbul trying to help the opposition sort through its internal problems. Once members have decided on issues such as expanded membership and leadership, the U.S. hopes they will recommit to peace talks, Psaki said.

Lavrov accused the coalition of trying to set preconditions by demanding that Assad’s departure from office must be the focus of any peace talks. He called such a demand “unrealistic.”

Also Thursday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said that Washington’s openness to a no-fly zone over Syria has raised doubts about the sincerity of U.S. support for a peace conference on Syria.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday that every option, including the possibility of a no-fly zone, remains on the table.

If the diplomatic option is now off the table, the West, including the U.S., will have to come up with a new approach. President Barack Obama could face renewed pressure to help the rebels militarily.

The opposition linked its decision to stay away from the conference to an ongoing battle for the strategic town of Qusair and the role of Hezbollah in helping Assad.

Iranian-backed Hezbollah is heavily involved in the 12-day-old push to drive rebels from the town. Coalition officials said Thursday that hundreds of people wounded in the fighting were trapped in the town.

Syrian rebel commanders have issued aggressive statements in recent days, threatening to attack Hezbollah and even the Lebanese army inside Lebanon if Hezbollah’s intervention is not halted.

“The talk about the international conference and a political solution to the situation in Syria has no meaning in light of the massacres that are taking place,” coalition spokesman Khalid Saleh told reporters. He said the group will not support any international peace efforts in light of the “invasion” of Syria by Iran and Hezbollah.

Late Wednesday, Lebanon’s president, Michel Suleiman,a political ally of Hezbollah, issued an unusual statement calling on Hezbollah to pull out of Syria for the sake of Lebanese security and the integrity of the group’s primary mission, fighting Israel.

Suleiman compared Hezbollah’s intervention - which its leaders and supporters have described as a pre-emptive war to prevent Sunni extremists involved in the Syrian uprising from infiltrating or attacking Lebanon - to the pre-emptive war doctrine President George W. Bush formulated to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Both sides in Syria value Qusair, which lies along a land corridor linking two of Assad’s strongholds - Damascus and an area along the Mediterranean coast. For the rebels, holding the town means protecting their supply line to Lebanon, just six miles away.

More than 70,000 people have been killed in the 26-month-old Syrian conflict that has had increasingly sectarian overtones. Members of Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority dominate the rebel ranks. Assad’s regime is mostly made up of Alawites, an offshoot sect of Shiite Islam.

Also Thursday, the U.N. Security Council agreed to add Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaidalinked opposition force fighting in Syria, to the U.N. sanctions blacklist.

The mission said the decision by the Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against al-Qaida will be officially published today, subjecting al-Nusra to a global arms embargo and asset freeze.

Al-Nusra has emerged as the most effective and organized force fighting against Assad’s government. It joined ranks with al-Qaida in Iraq in early April.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s military on Thursday returned fire after shots were fired at an armored personnel carrier from across the border with Syria.

A military statement said three to five people from across the border fired up to 15 shots toward the vehicle that was patrolling an area near the Orontes River, on the frontier. Turkish state-run TRT television said no one was wounded and the military said the group escaped and “disappeared from view” when it fired back. Information for this article was contributed by Bassem Mroue, Zeina Karam, Karin Laub and Bradley S. Klapper of The Associated Press; by Anne Barnard, Isabel Kershner, Steven Lee Myers, Michael R. Gordon and Stephen Castle of The New York Times; and by Loveday Morris and William Booth of The Washington Post.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 05/31/2013

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