Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has claimed that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin “are the one two leaders left” on the world stage, feedback that may probably anger his Western allies in NATO.

Talking on Monday, Erdogan made the remarks after Turkish-backed rebels had helped the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group take away Bashar al-Assad from energy in Syria.

He stated: “There are solely two of us left among the many leaders. Proper now, it’s simply me and Vladimir Putin.”

Turkish-backed rebels say they’ve claimed the town of Manbij in northern Syria in an offensive that was separate from the one which pressured Assad to flee to Russia.

Town was taken from Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a gaggle Turkey says is a terrorist organisation because of its ties with the Kurdistan Employees Occasion (PKK) militant group.

Erdogan has tried to make sure that Kurdish teams don’t play a considerable position in Syria’s future.

Erdogan is ready to be one of many main winners from the downfall of Assad. In Turkey, he has confronted stress due to the three million Syrian refugees within the nation.

It’s now anticipated that lots of them will return to their residence nation.

Regardless of Erdogan’s reward of Putin, the autumn of Assad is seen broadly as a blow to the Russian President.

Assad’s brutal oppression within the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring rebellion sparked the civil warfare in Syria, which lasted for 5 years.

Russian airstrikes on anti-government forces – together with ISIS – performed an important half in protecting Assad in energy.

Iran-backed Hezbollah additionally helped Assad. Nevertheless, with Russia distracted in Ukraine and Hezbollah reeling from its warfare with Israel, Syrian insurgent forces have been capable of launch a shock offensive and take quite a few cities in current days,

HTS – led by former Al Qaeda militant Abu Muhammed al Jolani – have been capable of shortly attain Damascus final week.

Whereas many in Syria rejoice, many are additionally making an attempt to rescue prisoners trapped contained in the now-infamous Sednaya jail close to Damascus.

Described as a “human slaughterhouse” by Amnesty Worldwide, the jail has been topic to quite a few human rights abuses – together with torture and executions.

The codes for the digital doorways weren’t left by the jail guards who fled, so Syrians are at the moment making an attempt to knock their means via to the underground cells the place many are nonetheless trapped.