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“We must not wrongly think, as happened in the last year, that the war is over. I say this not just to citizens but also to officials,” Assad told supporters in a speech last month.
“We have this romantic view sometimes that we are victorious. No. The war is not over.”
He said there was more fighting to be done before turning to his main point, the “siege” imposed by foreign states.
“The siege is a battle in itself,” he told a packed conference room in the capital, Damascus. “It is intensifying compared to previous years.”
The comments reflect an uncomfortable winter in Damascus, the eighth since the conflict began after protests on March 15, 2011. It is nearly a year since any mortar bomb hit the city but Syrians in government-held areas have been complaining of severe fuel shortages blamed by Damascus on Western sanctions.
Queues for state-subsidized bottles of cooking gas have pointed to wider economic difficulties the Syrian government faces despite military victories won with help from Iran and Russia.
full: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-analysis/syrias-assad-struggles-to-reap-spoils-after-military-gains-idUSKCN1QV11P
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