Assad admits military setbacks and shortage of soldiers

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has admitted his regime has a shortage of soldiers and has suffered military setbacks.

In his first public speech for a year, Assad also hailed “positive” changes in western attitudes to the conflict in the country – suggesting the US and its allies now understood they share an interest with his regime in defeating Islamic State-style jihadi terrorism. But he gave no overt indication that he was ready to cut a deal to end the four-year civil war that has left his regime in control of just a third or less of the country.

“We are not collapsing,” he said in a televised address. “We are steadfast and will achieve victory. Defeat does not exist in the dictionary of the Syrian Arab army.”

The priority US and Britain are giving to defeating Isis extremists, who hold large areas of northeast Syria and northern and western Iraq, has prompted suggestions Barack Obama's administration may drop its insistence that Assad stand down as part of any deal.

Meanwhile, Turkey has become the latest regional country to join the fight against Isis, launching air strikes and artillery attacks on some of the group's positions inside Syria. It also agreed to allow US aircraft to use Turkish bases. Ankara previously maintained that toppling Assad and containing Kurdish separatism was more important than fighting Islamic State, also known as Isis.

Following a weekend statement by Mevlut Cavusoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, that Turkey will create an "Isis-free" safe zone inside northern Syria, Assad dismissed the idea his country was heading towards partition. But he admitted the army had been forced to surrender some areas for strategic and manpower reasons.

“Everything is available [for the army], but there is a shortfall in human capacity,” he said. “Despite that, I am not presenting a dark picture.”

Assad's regime lost control of the northwestern province of Idlib in March and has suffered losses in the south near the border with Jordan. The regime's control is now limited to the big population centres of western Syria, including Damascus, Homs, Hama and the Mediterranean coastal region that forms the heartland of Assad's Alawite sect.

Assad's ally, the Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hizbullah, has been more successful in pushing back Islamic State and al-Nusra Front fighters from the Syrian-Lebanese border. Assad publicly acknowledged Hizbullah's "important" and "effective" assistance for the first time.

Assad described the regime’s surrender of territory as a question of priorities, given its limited resources. “It was necessary to specify critical areas for our armed forces to hang on to. Concern for our soldiers forces us to let go of some areas. Every inch of Syria is precious. The problem facing the military is not related to planning but to fatigue. It is normal that an army gets tired, but there’s a difference between fatigue and defeat.”

Assad insisted that any political settlement must be based on “eliminating terrorism” – referring to both the western-backed rebel forces and jihadis such as Islamic State.

Despite their more positive approach, he complained western countries still regarded regime opponents as revolutionaries rather than terrorists. “As long as terrorism is part of the external opposition that participates in the dialogue, talk of a political solution will be nothing but empty words,” he said.

Guardian service