ERBIL, Kurdistan Region--Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has claimed that his regime could retake all of Syria in a “few months” if foreign countries halted their support of the militants and rebels fighting it. “If you [anti-Assad forces] don’t have that support [from outside powers], it [retaking all of Syria] won’t take more than a few months,” he told NBC in an interview on Wednesday. “The Syrian Army has made a lot of advances recently,” he said. “It won’t take more than a few months.” Assad went on to accuse Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey of supporting “terrorist” groups in his country. He praised the Russians for their decisive intervention in the Syrian conflict late last year saying their support of Syria’s army “has tipped the scales against the terrorists.” “It was a crucial factor,” he added. Assad claimed the US is not being serious when it comes to destroying ISIS in Syria. “The reality is telling that, since the beginning of the American airstrikes, the terrorism has been expanding and prevailing. It only shrinked when the Russians intervened,” Assad said. “We wanted to defeat those terrorists, while the United States wanted to manage these groups in order to topple the government in Syria,” Assad added.
