RNA - “The recent victory in Aleppo has been very significant; it is the game-changing moment in this area conflict,” Danny Makki, the co-founder of Syrian Youth in Britain, said in an interview with the Tasnim News Agency.
“The ultimate goal of the Syrian government was to regain Aleppo and with Russian support, with Iranian support, it has been achieved after 3 or 4 years of very vicious fighting,” he noted.
“Aleppo has been one of the biggest hot spots of conflict in Syria,” the British analyst said, adding, “It's been the largest battle which has occurred and we've seen lots of the rebels and the militants in Aleppo received significant Western, Turkish support.”
“The groups such as al-Nusra Front, now Jabhat Fath al-Sham, and Ahrar al-Sham and different other groups received significant weapons, shipments and supplies from Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.”
“In essence, the victory in Aleppo is the game-changing moment of the war. It's the time when events have changed and it signifies a new beginning to the latter stages of the Syria conflict,” Makki said.
“Despite the fact of over up to 13,000 documented civilian deaths in western Aleppo, we've seen the Western media and the Western press generally talk about East Aleppo's opposed to West Aleppo of the suffering there and what's happening but there is ultimately a game of misinformation which is being played in the mainstream press, which generally tends to follow the political line of the governments in the West mainly the UK, France and the US.”
“What we've also seen is the people of Aleppo celebrating this victory. We've seen lots of celebratory protests, people coming to the streets and actually being genuinely happy with Aleppo being taken back,” the Middle East expert said.
“This signifies the fact that Aleppo is now one army; it is one city. There is no more east and west and this is what the West generally done in Syria over numerous years. It's attempted to use a divide-and-conquer strategy. The fact that they found in Aleppo means that their overall strategy in Syria is fading to an extent because Aleppo is the ultimate victory for the Syrian government and its allies and the West have felt this.”
“This is why the rhetoric in the narrative towards Aleppo has been so significant. It's been so potent in the press and there have been so social plethora of misinformation and fake news directed at the city. In terms of the military situation, Aleppo could have only been retaken with the help of the Aleppians themselves,” Makki stated.
“Recently, I was in Aleppo and I met numerous soldiers who from Aleppo itself. They've been joining different groups, paramilitary groups which is supportive of the government such as Liwa al-Quds. There have been other significant militia groups in Syria, who work with the military, who have been sent there such as Desert Hawks who are among the most significant and largest recent militia groups. You have also got the NDF, which is working in Aleppo and altogether you've had six or seven different militias and military groups who have formed under one united base with General Zaid al-Saleh, who was controlling the military operations in Aleppo and through that with the support of groups from the official army such as the 4th Republican Mechanized Division and the Republican Guard, they have managed over a period of time to consequently batter and retake different rebel areas,” he said.
“What we've seen in the aftermath and I was there recently is hundreds of gas jars and hell cannons which have been used to shell Western Aleppo. We've seen al-Nusra Front flags, Ahrar al-Sham flags, slogans of different groups which essentially goes to show that the rebels in Aleppo were not moderate, that a lot of the groups in Aleppo were extremist groups who are tied to al-Qaeda,” the analyst said.
“One of the biggest problems with the agreement which happened between Russia, the United States and Turkey and the Syrian government and the Iranian government was that the West and especially the US could not get the rebels to differentiate themselves from the al-Qaeda groups,” he said.
“That was one of the main reasons, the main clauses, in the agreement signed between (Sergei) Lavrov and (John)Kerry around three months ago for the US to actually support and help to enforce a concession from the opposition which would mean them separating from al-Nusra Front and al-Qaeda; a concession which ultimately the rebels did not do and in tandem, this skewed any political solution for Aleppo from the start. Since then, military operations have happened and the city has been retaken,” Makki noted.
Syria has been gripped by civil war since March 2011 with various terrorist groups, including Daesh (also known as ISIS or ISIL), currently controlling parts of it.
On December 15, Syria announced the liberation of the northern city of Aleppo from the foreign-backed terrorists, with President Bashar al-Assad praising the victory as “history in the making and worthy of more than the word ‘congratulations’.”
The Syrian security forces had encircled Aleppo on July 17 after closing off the last terrorist-controlled route into the city.
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