Prominent Syrian activist: President Assad enjoys support of millions across Syria

The Syrian people support President Bashar al-Assad’s administration, while rejecting the foreign-armed opposition, a prominent activist tells Press TV.

In the background to this, Syria has experienced 21 months of deadly unrest and the chaos is being orchestrated from outside. There are also reports that a very large number of the armed terrorsits are foreign nationals.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Mimi al-Laham, a Syrian activist, from Dubai, to further discuss the issue. The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: The unrest in Syria has resulted in thousands of refugees. Who is to blame?

Al-Laham: I think it’s pretty obvious who is to blame and that is the people who have fueled the insurrection since day one.

If you look even beyond March 2011 where the protests began and where the armed gangs started flooding into the border and shooting at police and soldiers as well as civilians, in 2001 Senator Wesley Clark of the US stated on record that they planned to take over seven countries in five years.

These included Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Sudan – which have all already faced US imperialism – and now Syria and eventually they hope Iran as well. This is, you know, out in the open.

We’re hearing promises of more money through the insurrection from Britain, from the US. They’re calling it non-lethal aid; but then again, they provide weapons to their proxies Qatar and Saudi Arabia which then funnels the weapons into Turkey and Jordan where it is taken up by these armed gangs who are running around Syria right now. This is fueling the insurrection.

Before 2011, March, there was no trouble in Syria.

It is these outside forces that are creating the problems, they are creating the refugees in Syria. The fact is that many times the armed gangs go into a suburb where the suburb will end up being completely abandoned because people are running away from the subsequent fighting that occurs.

Also, the armed gangs themselves have, you know, they loot houses, they take over houses and garrison them and use them…They leave a lot of people homeless and that is what is creating the refugee problem.

Press TV: You’re a Syrian expat living outside Syria, tell us more about how much support Bashar al-Assad has among Syrians living outside Syria.

Al-Laham: I think it’s very interesting that Reuters itself quoted someone from the opposition, a commander in the Free Syrian Army, saying that Aleppo has 70 percent support for the Assad regime. This is even from the opposition sources themselves.

This is Aleppo which is one of the largest if not the largest city in Syria outside of Damascus, the capital. I think that is a great indicator of the support base of the government.

Also, you have the fact that the population centers, the city centers didn’t rise up in support of the insurrection. They rose up, in fact, in millions in support of the government. That’s also an indicator.

Personally, I’m not a government supporter but many others like me are quite skeptical of the insurrection. Even the people who are not government supports are also not necessarily supporters of the NATO-funded insurrection. That sort of gives you an idea of how many people are outside of this insurrection.