Live

West Asia

|

Syria

Syria-Russia gains in 2 weeks outweigh US’s one-year achievements: Syria speaker

A top Syrian official hails the achievements made by Syrian forces and Russia’s Air Force against terrorists.

schedule

Syria’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Jihad al-Laham (Photo by AFP)

Syria’s parliament speaker says the achievements of the country’s armed forces together with the Russian Air Force over the past two weeks in the campaign against terrorists outweighs what the US and its allies achieved over the course of the past year.

“Things that have been done for [the] last 15 days by Syria in cooperation with Russia exceed achievements of US-led alliance in the last year,” Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency quoted Mohammad Jihad al-Laham as saying on Monday.

Al-Laham said that, unlike the US, Russia’s stance against terrorism has been clear and would have positive results for the region.

He said Americans claim they want to fight terrorists but it seems too big a challenge for them to undertake.

The Syrian top parliamentarian further slammed what he called Washington’s “treacherous and deceptive policies” on the international arena.

“Russia in its position of principles rehabilitated the norms of international law, which the US in its position was attempting to defame,” the Syrian official said.

Russia started its air campaign against Daesh and other terrorists in Syria on September 30, after  a request by the Syrian government.

Image released by RIA Novosti shows Russian Su-25 attack aircraft taking off from the Khmeimim airbase in Syria’s northwestern city of Latakia.

Syrian troops and allied volunteer fighters began a major offensive against terrorists near the northern city of Aleppo, the fourth Syria has launched since the Russian airstrikes over the past two weeks.

The US and some of its allies have been carrying out air raids against what they say are Daesh positions in Iraq since August 2014. Since last September, some members of the US-led coalition have also been pounding purported Daesh positions inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The crisis has claimed lives of more than 250,000 people so far and displaced millions.