In an interview Thursday night to the Hizballah’s Al Manar TV channel, Syrian president Bashar Assad said: “Russia is committed to implementing the weapons contracts it signed with us and the crisis or Netanyahu [over the S-300 anti-air missiles] have nothing to do with that. The delivery of some weapons has been completed and the rest will be delivered later.”
He then spoke of “clear popular enthusiasm to open the Golan front for resistance against Israel,” adding: “We have informed all foreign parties that we will retaliate against any future Israeli attack.”
Assad went on to accuse “some of Israel’s agents in Lebanon” of trying on May 7 “to seize control of the resistance's [Hizballah’s] telecommunications network,” and argued that “Hizballah is now in Syria because Israel is involved.”
The Syrian ruler continued: “The timing of the Qusayr battle is linked to the Israeli escalation, because its objective is to besiege the resistance by land and sea.”
All the same, “The main battle,” in Assad’s view, “is in Damascus and Aleppo, not in Qusayr, and Hizballah has only a limited number of fighters, no more than 2,000.”