Syria President Warns of West’s New Plot to Revive Terrorism

“This terrorism we are experiencing today has been attacking us since the 1950s.  At every stage, it developed its techniques.  In the 1950s it created chaos but it wasn’t armed, in the 1960s it started to become armed.  In the 1970s and 80s it became organized, and today this same terrorism has developed its tactics and gained political support, with backing from countries and banks,” Assad told Russia’s Zvezda television channel on Sunday.

He added, “Our fate with terrorism has existed even before I, and most Syrians, were born and therefore it should always remain in our minds. Even if we defeat this terrorism, we should always think that it could come back. For the simple reason that first and foremost, it is not about individuals in as much as it is about ideology; as long as the West continues to take reference from its colonial past and continues to think of hegemony, it is inevitable that it will continue to bring this terrorism back to life in other forms. We must think realistically that even if it was eliminated, it could appear later in different forms. That’s why the battle for us, is against terrorist ideology before it is a battle against terrorists as individuals; when this ideology is eliminated, the West and Syria’s enemies, will no longer have the tools to resurrect it.

“I do think so, because the West will not change in the foreseeable future.  And also, because the intellectual war is more difficult than a military war and it takes longer to rehabilitate and equip new generations with the right kind of thinking: with non-extremist thought, non-fanatic thought, with open-mindedness.  Just as this terrorist ideology has been developed since the 1960s; it took 50 years to reach the stage we are at.  It does not appear and spread throughout the world overnight.  Hundreds of billions have been spent to establish it and the West has been supporting it since the days of British rule, even before the American presence.  They have supported religious extremism since the beginning of the 20th century; so, fighting it needs time”.

In 2017, both Syria and Iraq declared victory over Daesh by reclaiming all of its territories – about a third of the two country’s area – invaded by the terrorist group in 2014. However, the terrorist group still maintains sleeper cells in large areas of Iraq and Syria and periodically launches attacks.