REPORT: Syrian President Bachar Assad: "Arab League illegitimate"

         
Syrian President Bachar Assad said on Thursday that “the Arab League lacks legitimacy” after giving Syria’s seat to the opposition, noting that “the League should represent the Arab people not the States”.        

On another note, Syria announced that it will take steps next week to support its currency after the pound plunged by nearly a quarter last month against the dollar, part of a two-year slide caused by a revolt and ensuing civil war.            

The announcement on state media by Central Bank Governor Adeeb Mayaleh comes after a vague pledge of support last month which was followed by days of inaction, leading to fears that authorities were no longer willing to burn up reserves to defend the currency.          

Mayaleh said the central bank will "sell foreign currency to banks and exchange institutions ... in a way to guarantee a stable Syrian pound," starting at the beginning of next week.               
Separately, reports emerged stating that the Syrian government is sending members of its irregular militias for guerrilla combat training at a secret base in Iran, in a move to bolster its armed forces drained by two years of fighting and defections, fighters and activists said.    

The discreet program has been described as an open secret in some areas loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.    

Reuters interviewed four fighters who said they were taken on the combat course in Iran, as well as opposition sources who said they had also been documenting such cases.    

Israel's intelligence chief and a Western diplomat have said Iran, Assad's main backer, is helping to train at least 50,000 militiamen and aims to increase the force to 100,000 - though they did not say where the training occurred.    

No one at Iran's foreign ministry was available for comment, but Iranian officials have repeatedly denied military involvement in the Syrian conflict, saying they have only provided humanitarian aid and political support for Assad.    

A Syrian government security source, who declined to be named, denied that Syria was sending fighters to Iran. "We train our own special forces for this type of combat," he said. "Since 2006 we have had units trained in guerrilla warfare, why would we need to send people to Iran?"    

But if the reports by Syrian fighters are true, the move to train combatants in Iran suggests that their country's increasingly regionalized conflict has grown well beyond - and could even outlast - a battle for power between Assad's circle and the opposition.

Civil war now rages in most of Syria's provinces and the United Nations says 70,000 people have been killed. Bankers and dealers said the pound has lost more than half of its value since the uprising began in 2011, when the currency stood at 47 pounds to the dollar.           

The government has stepped in several times to prop up the pound, which has dropped as confidence in the currency plunged and Syrians have hoarded dollars.         

But Syrian's foreign reserves - already hit by a slump in tourism and oil revenues and by previous efforts to prop up the currency - are estimated by some bankers to be as low as $4 billion, which would mean the central bank cannot continue to support the pound indefinitely.           

Syria's foreign reserves were estimated by officials and independent economists at $17 billion before the uprising. If the pound is allowed to fall, it would further drive up inflation in a country where food and fuel prices have already skyrocketed. Economists say inflation could be running at around 40 percent.       


LBCI/REUTERS


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