A handout picture released by the Syiran Arab News Agency (SANA) shows President Bashar al-Assad addressing members of the ruling Baath party of the Tartous branch in Damascus on November 20, 2014. AFP / SANA
"International cooperation" is necessary to crush the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militant group, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Thursday, while Israeli media claimed Wednesday that hundreds of wounded Syria rebels have been treated in Israel.
"The region is going through decisive times" and the most important factor in determining the outcome is whether there is "real and sincere international cooperation" against the jihadists, Assad said.
“[ISIS] did not appear out of thin air. ISIS came to cap accumulating wrong-headed policies by parties involved in the war against Syria that have supported, armed and funded terrorist and takfiri organizations to undermine Syria and strike Syrian unity,” state news agency SANA quoted Assad.
On Sunday, a United Nations panel investigating war crimes in Syria said in a report that ISIS militants have been receiving “external support” in the last four years.
"They did not fall from the sky. They have been entering Syria with external support in the last four years," said Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, chair of the inquiry, adding sarcastically that the presence of ISIS was not a "big discovery."
Assad was speaking to members of the ruling Baath party, just days after US President Barack Obama rejected any alliance with the Syrian president against the jihadists.
Obama said on Sunday that Assad, who has managed to stay in power after four years of turmoil, "has lost legitimacy with the majority of his people."
"For us to then make common cause with him against ISIS would only turn more Sunnis in Syria in the direction of supporting ISIS and would weaken our coalition," he claimed.
However, in July, official returns showed Assad winning 88.7 percent of the presidential vote.
It was the first contested presidential election in Syria. Previous votes had been referendums to approve the appointment of Bashar and his father, Hafez al-Assad, who died in 2000.
Russia, which has supplied the Syrian government with crucial diplomatic and military support, said the election had been fair, free and transparent and criticized governments that denounced it.
Several Syrian officials have constantly repeated that Syria must be part of the coalition against jihadists because the country is a key victim of terrorism and its army has been battling extremist groups for over three years.
ISIS militants now hold up to a third of Syria as well as large swathes of Iraq, and have declared a 'caliphate' in the territories they control.
Other militant groups have also taken part of the Syrian crisis, fighting in different regions against the Syrian government.
Syrian rebels work 'hand in glove' with Israel
Earlier on Thursday, fighters from al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front and other insurgents attacked and attempted to seize control of Baath City in southern Syria, the Syrian army's last major bastion in a province flanking the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.
The battle is part of a campaign launched by the insurgents this week to take control of the entire Quneitra province. Only Baath city and neighboring Khan Arnaba town remain under the control of the Syrian army.
About 2,000 militants were taking part in the southern offensive. They were locked in street fighting with the Syrian army in the city center overnight but were pushed back to the outskirts, activists said.
Syrian state media and pro-government newspapers said the army repelled the militant push in Baath City. They reported heavy fighting after a barrage of rebel mortar and artillery fire hit the city center and municipality building.
For the extremist groups, taking full control of the Quneitra province, close to the Golan Heights and Jordan, is important because they want to open a path towards Damascus, Syria’s capital, which lies just 65 kilometers to the north and link up with insurgents there.
Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front and other Islamist brigades and rebels fighting under the umbrella of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, who the US and other allies want to arm and train, currently have “the upper hand in the area,” Abu Yahya al-Anari, a militant from the Ahrar al-Sham rebel group, said.
"The rebels are using all kinds of weapons from tank fire to mortars, as well as raiding groups," said Abdullah Saif Allah, a Nusra Front field commander in al-Hamidiya town near the frontier with the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.
Damascus repeatedly accused so-called “rebel groups,” such as Nusra, who are active in Quneitra countryside, of working hand in glove with Israel from which they receive logistic support.
SANA, quoting Israeli media, reported that Israeli occupation forces transported early Wednesday “two wounded terrorists” from Syria to an Israeli hospital in the northern Israeli-occupied territories of Palestine for medical treatment.
Israeli Walla website said “the Israeli army transported two wounded people from Syria” and “they were admitted to Nahariya hospital in western Galilee Wednesday morning.”
The website cited that the hospital has treated 439 militants wounded in Syria so far.
Last February, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited a field hospital in the annexed Golan Heights for wounded Syrian rebels. Netanyahu’s visit was much appreciated by many opposition leaders including Mohammad Badie, who said from Istanbul that he and his friends “would like to thank Netanyahu for his public support for wounded Syrian rebels.”
Moreover in October, an exposé by Israeli political commentator Ehud Yaari confirmed an existing relationship between the two sides.
The Israeli writer also spoke about an “undeclared truce” between Israel and Nusra, who so far have not engaged in any clashes with the Israeli army.
Baath city was named after Syria's ruling Baath Party as an act of defiance after the destruction of nearby Quneitra city in the 1967 war with Israel. Quneitra was abandoned and Baath is now the provincial administrative center.
Israel seized 1,200 square kilometers (460 square miles) of the Golan Heights during the Six-Day War of 1967, then annexed it in 1981 in a move never recognized by the international community.
(AFP, Reuters, Al-Akhbar)
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