Rudaw spoke with Ibrahim Idlibi, a Free Syrian Army (FSA) spokesperson on Friday about the state of affairs in Aleppo before their retreat from the city and the assistance or lack thereof from their foreign backers during the siege.
Below is the text of Idlibi's conversation with Rudaw TV.
Yesterday the last fighters of FSA left Aleppo for the countryside. Now Aleppo is empty of FSA fighters. More than 30,000 civilians and 7,000 fighters left the eastern neighborhoods in seven days after a Turkish-Syrian deal. Some of them have gone to the northern countryside. The city has no FSA. There are now Hezbollah militia, Iranian militia and regime forces.
We have not given up on the city, but the war compelled us to do that. FSA managed to resist inside the city under 113 days of siege. But regime and Iranian forces alongside Russian jets exhausted the fighters in the eastern neighborhoods. They killed civilians and devastated the city. This led FSA to retreat temporarily and reorganize our forces for if there is a new battle.
Had there been food supplies and medicine to treat the wounded civilians the FSA would not have retreated. Regime and Iranian militia brought food and medical supplies into the eastern neighborhoods and filmed it and said they belonged to FSA and FSA had kept it away. But that is not true. If the FSA had such supplies the FSA would have stayed longer. We had plans to resist six months or longer but the heavy bombing and destruction compelled us to withdraw.
Not only Turkey, but all friends of Syria abandoned the FSA and in fact they bear responsibility for the demographic changes taking place in this city. The friends of the Syrian people should have dropped assistance to us through the air. The UN convoys were all around the city and the regime forces couldn't enter the city. They could have airdropped assistance to us but they were not honest with their friends inside Aleppo.
The FSA did not give up on Aleppo, and it is still fighting on many fronts. We have only lost 13 percent of the area and the rest of the countryside is still under FSA. There is Idlib and Hama and we get help from the friends of Syria not only Turkey. And there is the Euphrates Shield still going. I can only say that people abandoned us in Aleppo. Everywhere else, on the east and western fronts battles still continue and they are helped by our allies. For sure the loss of Aleppo was a big loss for the revolution but it was for the safety of the people and our fighters.
Yes there were big losses in lives and material. There were more than 30 FSA martyrs throughout the 113 days of siege. We lost tanks and our heavy weapons were not useful for the street fight. The FSA killed more than 1,300 regime forces and its militias. But the main victims were the civilians because Russian jets and Iranian forces destroyed their resources. All of this is considered loss for the revolution. But our losses cannot be compared to the high level of regime, Iranian and Iraqi militias.
3,000 civilians were killed during the 113 days of siege. 13 medical centers were destroyed. Regime forces destroyed Sulaimani Halabi plant that supplied the eastern part of the city with water and electricity. All electricity lines were destroyed with jets and artillery fire.
Yes, 1,300 regime and militia forces were killed. Seven tanks destroyed inside the city with armor-piercing missiles and we handed over 14 Iranian militia prisoners based on the deal. And we handed over wounded personnel of the regime. In the outskirts of the city of Aleppo many regime army machinery have been destroyed.
