Aleppo residents celebrate full liberation from terrorists

The residents of Aleppo have taken to the Syrian city’s streets to celebrate the imminent official announcement of the city’s full liberation from Takfiri terrorists.

According to Syrian army officials on Monday, 99 percent of the formerly occupied regions of the city have been recovered by government forces, adding that the army is in the "last moments before declaring victory."   

"The battle in eastern Aleppo should end quickly. They (terrorists) don't have much time. They either have to surrender or die," said Lieutenant General Zaid al-Saleh, the director of the government's Aleppo security committee.

Earlier, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the battle to liberate the city had reached its end and that government forces were making their final advances into the militant-held parts of the city. “The battle of Aleppo has reached its end. It is just a matter of a small period of time, no more, no less...," said the group’s director, Rami Abdulrahman.

He noted that the militants have now withdrawn from the last six neighborhoods they were using as hideouts in the city.

Less than a month ago, the Syrian army started a wholesale push to drive the militants out of their stronghold in the city’s eastern side, making great strides in the process.

Aleppo’s complete liberation from the foreign-backed Takfiri terrorists would mark a significant victory for Syria in its nearly six-year-long campaign against foreign-backed terrorists. The liberation of Aleppo would deny the militants their main supply routes across the Turkish border while it would hugely undermine the morale of the militant groups.

Also on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Daesh’s latest attack on Palmyra was “apparently” launched from Iraq’s Mosul from “territories patrolled by the aircraft of the US-led coalition." He added this "makes one think that – and I really hope to be wrong here -- that it was orchestrated and coordinated to give a respite to those thugs, who are entrenched in eastern Aleppo.”

He noted that the US had been using a conflicting policy towards the terrorists in Syria since the beginning of the conflict some six years ago, by battling Daesh but openly avoiding conflict with other terrorists groups.

“There is a significant number of reasons to believe that [Al-Nusra] is being spared as the most effective combat-capable force, which opposes the governmental [forces] of the ground in order to be used for overthrowing the legitimate Syrian government when the time comes,” he added.

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has received a letter from Pope Francis in which the pontiff voiced his sympathies for the people of Syria over the difficulties they had endured during the country’s years of conflict.

The Vatican’s top diplomat in Syria, Cardinal Mario Zenari, delivered the letter personally to Assad on Monday.

In his letter, the Pope condemned all manners of extremism and terrorism across the globe and especially in Syria. He also called for uniting all efforts to end the conflict in the country and to restore peace.

SS