PHOTO: Image of Syrian military — from February 2015 — used by Iran’s Fars News to proclaim imminent “liberation” of Aleppo city
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UPDATE 1200 GMT: The Supreme Leader has made his first notable statement on the Syrian crisis, indicating that any talks on the country’s future must include the Assad regime.
Ayatollah Khamenei told Iran’s ambassadors and diplomatic staff on Sunday t— two days after 16 countries, including Iran, met in Vienna — “It is pointless that other countries gather and decide for a country’s state and its head.”
Khamenei insisted that the only solution for the conflict was an election and that “military and financial support for rebels must end”.
The cleric also continued his denunciation of America, having rejected any negotiations with Washington apart from the nuclear issue:
Contrary to some views, the United States is main part of regional problems, not part of the solution.
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) November 1, 2015
ORIGINAL ENTRY: Iran has stepped up its propaganda for Syria’s Assad regime, declaring that all of Aleppo Province — including the country’s largest city — will soon be captured by the Syrian military.
The English-language site of Fars News, linked to the Revolutionary Guards, made the announcement on Saturday:
Battlefield sources said…that the Syrian army, backed by Hezbollah fighters and Russian warplanes, are about to start the last phase of their operations to push back the terrorists from the entire city of Aleppo and its countryside.
The source said that very good cooperation and coordination among the Syrian armed forces, Hezbollah and the Russian air force, along with widening gaps, disunity and hopelessness among the ranks of the militants, promise the imminent liberation of the Northern province of Aleppo.
The “sources” said a “massive joint operation” to recapture Aleppo city, divided since July 2012 between the regime and rebels, will begin by Sunday.
Fars News is renowned for propaganda which often bear little relations to the truth. Its authors have worked alongside colleagues from the Assad regime for years, with an office close to the Presidential Palace in Damascus.
On Sunday, all 12 of the site’s headline stories proclaim regime victories over rebels and the Islamic State in a six-front offensive which began on October 7.
Despite intense Russian bombardment and the support of Hezbollah, Iranian troops and Iranian-commanded Iraqi, Afghan, and Pakistani militia, the offensives have made limited or no progress.
However, Fars continues to hail victory after victory — this morning it falsely claims that the Syrian military took the town of Khan Touman, south of Aleppo city.
Syria’s rebels and the Islamic State control much of Aleppo Province amid a three-way fight for northwest Syria since January 2014. The Assad regime had hoped that its current offensive would surround Aleppo city, but an Islamic State counter-attack has cut the Syrian military’s main route, threatening up to 1 million people in regime-held areas.
Prominent MP Repeats Call for Release of Detained Opposition Leaders
Prominent MP Ali Motahari has repeated his call for the release of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Zahra Rahnavard from 57-month house arrests.
Addressing a meeting of the Tehran University Islamic Association on Saturday, Motahari said “any fate might befall a person” who expressed an opinion about the disputed 2009 Presidential election.
Mousavi and Karroubi were leaders of the Green Movement that arose before and after that election. Mousavi was the leading challenger in the vote “won” by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while Karroubi — a former Speaker of Parliament — also ran and became a vocal critic of the regime’s crackdown on dissent. Mousavi’s wife Rahnavard is a leading activist, academic, and artist.
Motahari blamed the “indifference of the different strata of the society such as the clergy and the elite” for the continued detentions, as he said that in some cases the Islamic Republic has acted worse than the Shah’s regime that was overthrown in 1979.
He continued, “If we can solve the nuclear problems through dialogue and reach an acceptable result, why should we not be able to resolve our domestic issues.”
