Assad: Army battling manpower shortage
Print Edition
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said yesterday the army had been forced to give up areas in order to hold onto more important ones in its fight with insurgents, and the scale of the war meant the military faced a manpower shortage.
In a remarkably frank assessment of the strains afflicting the Syrian military after more than four years of conflict, Assad said the type of war confronting Syria meant the army could not fight everywhere for risk of losing vital ground.
鈥淪ometimes, in some circumstances, we are forced to give up areas to move those forces to the areas that we want to hold onto,鈥 Assad said in a televised speech.
鈥淲e must define the important regions that the armed forces hold onto so it doesn鈥檛 allow the collapse of the rest of the areas.鈥
Assad has absorbed a series of battlefield defeats since March: He lost most of the northwestern province of Idlib to an insurgent alliance including the al Qaeda-backed Nusra Front, and important areas of the southern region along the border with Jordan to mainstream groups of the 鈥淪outhern Front.鈥
In addition, ultra-hardline Islamic State insurgents seized the central city of Palmyra from the Syrian military in May.
The Syrian government鈥檚 territorial control stands at no more than 25 percent of the country, with the rest divided among an array of armed groups including Islamic State, other rebel groups and a well-organized Kurdish militia, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the war. But the state-held area is home to the majority of the population.
Assad said increased support from states backing the rebels, including Turkey, was the reason for recent setbacks that had created 鈥渁 state of despair鈥 among Syrians. Syria is in a war funded by the richest and most powerful states, he said.
But Assad struck a defiant tone, saying there would be no compromise solutions, and he dismissed the view that Syria was heading towards partition into areas run separately by the Damascus government and armed groups fighting him.
鈥淓verything is available (for the army), but there is a shortfall in human capacity,鈥 Assad said. 鈥淒espite that, I am not presenting a dark picture.鈥
Assad said the idea behind giving up territory was to allow for later counter-attacks. 鈥淔rom a military point of view, holding to this area, or that patch, would lead to the recovery of the other areas.鈥
The government鈥檚 military setbacks have triggered renewed pledges of support from Assad鈥檚 main regional allies, the Shi鈥檌te Islamist government of Iran and the Lebanese group Hezbollah, which is fighting alongside the Syrian army.
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