Dayr al-Zawr celebrates breaking of siege

Watch footage showing the people of the Syrian city of Dayr al-Zawr celebrate the breaking of the Daesh terrorist group’s three-year siege on the city.

Residents of Dayr al-Zawr took to the streets to celebrate their freedom on Tuesday, after the Syrian army advanced on the Brigade 137 base front on the western outskirts of the city, effectively breaching the siege that Daesh had laid since January 2015.

“We feel joy. We have been waiting for our heroic army for three years during a sick siege that we lived alongside our people in Deir al-Zor. Our confidence in our army, wide leadership and nation enabled us to know that this moment was inevitable because the people of Dayr al-Zawr are steadfast, they can bear anything for victory and we are confident that our people will be victorious. God willing, our people will come back and we can rebuild our country again after all Syrian lands are liberated,” said a resident of the city.

Following the announcement, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered his congratulations to Russian and Syrian armies over their large-scale victory against the terrorists.

“Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Putin has congratulated the command of the Russian military group as well as the command of the Syrian state army with such a strategically important victory over terrorists from the standpoint of Syria’s liberation from Daesh,” said Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

He added that Putin has sent Assad a telegram, in which he hailed this strategic victory and congratulated the Syrian president over the recent gains.

“Terrorists put up a solid resistance and they still continue resisting, used suicide bombers and 50 of them were eliminated, but the zone of the breakthrough keeps growing and the battle moved to the streets,” he added.

Calling it an “important victory,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said, “The people and resistance are achieving victory in Syria and we will grow farther from a military solution with the defeat of Daesh.”

In the past few months, Daesh has suffered multiple defeats across Syria, notably in the city of Raqqah, its de facto capital in the Arab country. It has also been heavily battered in neighboring Iraq, particularly by losing its main Iraqi base of Mosul in July.

Syria has been fighting different foreign-sponsored militant and terrorist groups since March 2011. The Damascus government has repeatedly blamed certain countries for the spread of the devastating militancy.