Assad admits losses in Syrian civil war

BEIRUT – Syrian President Bashar Assad delivered a sober assessment of the state of his forces on Sunday, acknowledging a manpower shortage and conceding troop withdrawals from some areas, but asserting that the military was not facing collapse.

The president defended a controversial triage strategy that has seen forces pull back from some zones while reinforcing units in other parts of the country.

“Are we giving up areas?” Assad asked as he posed a series of questions about the government’s strategy. “Why do we lose other areas? And where is the army in some of the areas?”

The Syrian president endeavored to provide answers. But it was an open question whether his responses would reassure loyalists worried that the government could be losing its hold on the embattled country.

“Important areas must be specified for the armed forces to hold onto, so as to prevent the collapse of the other areas,” Assad said in a speech before a group of economic officials in Damascus.

The president also thanked his allies – notably Iran – while taking the West to task for supporting “terrorists,” the Syrian government’s standard term for the armed opposition fighting to wrest control of the country.

The core areas under government control include the capital, Damascus, and the strategic corridor north to the cities of Homs and Hama and west to the Mediterranean coast, a pro-government stronghold.

Despite threatened supply lines, government forces also have maintained control over roughly half of the northern city of Aleppo, divided for more than three years between loyalist and opposition forces. Various rebel offensives to take full control of the city have made little headway.

Syrian authorities have been actively seeking to increase military recruitment in recent months, a sign of the shortage of fighters across a sprawling battlefield that stretches from the country’s northern fringes to its southern tip, and from its western borders to its eastern frontier.