Assad says Aleppo’s capture also “victory” for Iranian and Russian allies

(Reuters) Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Thursday the regaining of full control of the northern city of Aleppo was a victory for his Russian and Iranian allies as much as his own country.

In comments after meeting a senior Iranian delegation, Assad also said the battlefield successes were a “basic step on the road to ending terrorism in the whole of Syrian territory and creating the right circumstances for a solution to end the war”.

More than 4,000 fighters were evacuated overnight from east Aleppo to opposition-held areas, under an agreement between the warring sides overseen by the International Committee of the Red Cross and Syrian Arab Red Crescent, the ICRC said on Thursday.

“Overnight between Wednesday and Thursday, in one of the last stages of the evacuation, more than 4,000 fighters were evacuated in private cars, vans, and pick-ups from eastern Aleppo to western rural Aleppo, as per the agreement reached between the different parties,” ICRC spokeswoman Krista Armstrong said.

This brought to around 34,000 the total number of people evacuated from the district in a week-long operation, hampered by heavy snow and wind, she said.

“The evacuation will continue for the entire day and night and most probably tomorrow (Friday). Thousands are still expected to be evacuated,” Armstrong said.

Russian air strikes in Syria have killed 35,000 rebel fighters and succeeded in halting a chain of revolutions in the Middle East, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Thursday.

Speaking at a gathering of top military officials that appeared designed to showcase Russia’s military achievements, Shoigu said Moscow’s intervention had prevented the collapse of the Syrian state.

“We are now stronger than any potential aggressor,” President Vladimir Putin said at the same event at the Defence Ministry in Moscow.

Shoigu said Russian aircraft had flown 18,800 sorties in Syria since the start of the Kremlin’s operation there last year, destroying 775 training camps, 405 sites where weapons were being made and killing 35,000 fighters.

“The chain of ‘color revolutions’ spreading across the Middle East and Africa has been broken,” Shoigu said.

Russia’s intervention in Syria is widely seen as having saved President Bashar al-Assad’s forces from defeat and as being crucial to their retaking full control of Aleppo.

Shoigu also said Russia’s nuclear missile forces would next year be swelled by three extra units armed with modern weaponry and that the air force would receive five modernized strategic bombers.

But Putin warned that while Russia’s military power had grown substantially, “if we don’t want that to change we had better not lose focus.”