 Good afternoon. I wanted to, first of all, welcome everyone here. Thank you for making the time to come out and listen to our distinguished guests. Also, thank you for those of you who are listening in via live stream. I wanted to begin by giving special thanks to New America's international security program and the Middle East Task Force who are responsible for putting on this event. My name is Adnan Zulfikar. I'll be moderating today and moderating the discussion as well. As many of you know, the Syrian situation has entered its fourth year. We are looking at over 150,000 people killed. Half the country has been displaced. And of that, about 3 million are almost 2.5 million refugees. The situation has been described by the UN as the greatest tragedy of this century. It's a humanitarian disaster. Chemical weapons have been used. Starvation has also been a tactic of war. We now also see that, unfortunately, the Geneva peace talks have netted very little results. And word is that the UN Syrian envoy, Lahtar Brahimi, will be resigning soon. So brutal air campaigns continue. There's the rise of extremist militias. There are many different topics when it relates to Syria. And so we're very, very fortunate today to have with us guests from the visiting Syrian opposition delegation. This is the first official visit of the Syrian National Coalition since it was formed in 2012. We're looking forward to their insights. And I'm hoping that the moderated discussion will lead us in many different directions. The format for today is going to be very simple. I'll be moderating a discussion for about a half hour with our guests. One additional guest will be joining us a little bit late. And then subsequent to that, we'll be opening it up for Q&A. There will be a mic that will be going around. So I encourage the audience members to ask questions, but to please wait until the mic comes to you so that everybody can hear it. We're hoping that everything will be done by around four o'clock in respect of your time as well. So just briefly, by way of introduction, we have with us Mr. Hadi Al-Bahra, who is the chief negotiator and secretary general of the Syrian National Coalition's political committee. He's also an advisor to the SNC's president. We also have with us Mr. Munzer Akbik, who is the chief of staff for the Syrian National Coalition president. And a little later, we'll have Ms. Reem Alef, who is also an advisor to the president joining us. So with that, let me begin by sort of asking a very general question. Can you give us an assessment, a brief assessment, of what's happening on the ground right now? As of today, what is the situation in Syria, and particularly in some of these major centers, like Homs, Aleppo, Damascus? Better to start from where we finished the engineer. Sure. Your microphone is working? Yes. So as you know, we have attended and participated in Geneva conference with open mind and positive attitude. And I look for achieving political resolution to the crisis. Unfortunately, there we did not have a partner. Excuse me. OK. Now it's working. It's loud. OK. The regime strategy was just stalling and trying not to discuss any really serious subjects in the negotiation session. We have introduced in Geneva a roadmap to achieve political transition out of 24 points. The regime refused to discuss it. The regime refused to agree on the agenda proposed by Mr. Brahimi and refused about discussing the political transition in totality. So it was clear after Geneva that the regime only believes in a military resolution to the crisis. For the international community and to us, it was clear that there is no resolution and solution to the Syrian crisis except the political one. But also there is no political solution unless you press on the regime and change the balance of power on the ground plus send clear messages to the regime that following military campaigns and using extreme violence against the Syrian people will lead it nowhere, will gain it no more legitimacy. And the end result of this would be to take this case to the world criminal court. Since the three months, the coalition and the Free Syrian Army has announced their clear position regarding the extremism, extremist organization, and terrorist organizations in Syria. And we had no choice but to raise a military campaign against them because they followed a clear strategy. Instead of fighting this regime, they thought instead of fighting the regime itself, they tried to liberate the liberated areas and gain the liberated areas from the Free Syrian Army to force people into their own ideology and way of thinking. So since six months approximately, we started waging a war against these, and mainly ISIS was the start. We were able to achieve some success in the northern side of Syria. But every time we succeed, they come back. And main support line of these terrorist organizations are coming from Iraq. Other terrorist organizations present in Syria are terrorist organizations who are fighting with the regime itself. And they are based, militias based, on religious extremism ideas. And they are participating in killing the Syrian people. So currently, we find ourselves and the Free Syrian Army fighting a two fronts war. A war against the regime to win our freedom, dignity, and achieve the transition to a democratic society. And another war front against extremism and terrorist organization. While in the same time, we can say the amount of help and aid from the international community stayed at the same level. We know that the US has did a lot in helping the Syrian cause. They are one of the biggest donors. They donated until now approximately around $1.7 billion to the Syrian people, which we carry with us our thanks and appreciation from the Syrian people to the American people and to the American administration. But we know also that the US is the greatest power and the greatest presentation of democracy in the world. And this puts a big burden on its own shoulder. So we look for much more to be given by the US and mainly achieving the political solution. The humanitarian suffering, this is a growing problem and issue. Now we have 2 and 1 half million people, refugees. The UN expect that this number will rise to 4 million by the end of the year. And maybe it will increase more. So even the international community will reach a point where they will not be able to cope with these issues. So the fastest solution is finding a way to enforce a political resolution to the crisis. So now that we've opened the door with regard to the political solution and how direct this to Mr. Monser, with Geneva having sort of stalled or failed and it's seeming that there's no political process in place, what potential political solution is the opposition looking for now? Are you looking to open up a new process? Or what is the political solution that we can speak of? Thank you and thank you all for coming here and participating in this event. You know that the Assad regime strategy from the very beginning was a crackdown, violent crackdown on the people in order to back on their revolution. It is like slaughtering to submission, if you like to call it. They started with the shoot to kill policy facing the peaceful demonstrations and escalated into all out war. Against the population. As you can see that there is nothing the regime is not doing in terms of violence. Bombing the cities and villages, there are hundreds of them are completely destroyed now and people displaced about 10 million, about 3 million refugees in the neighboring countries and about 7 million displaced inside the country. Along with hundreds of thousands of dead and injured. This is all Assad regime violence using all kinds of weapons, artillery, warplanes, scud missiles, chemical weapons, everything. So you are facing here a side who is only talking war and only doing war. But at the same time you want peace. You want to achieve peace because people are suffering a lot from this war. But in order to achieve peace you need that party, the regime party to cease fire. But they are not doing that and they will not do that because what Assad wants is to keep ruling the country and to get all the people except the continuation of tyranny. The same way it has been going for the past 50 years since Ba'ath party coup in 1963. The Syrian people, as you can see, as everybody is seeing in the world, despite all the suffering and sacrifices, they are not backing on their revolution. They are continuing. There is determination despite all the sacrifices. So I don't think that Assad can actually win militarily like he thinks he want to do. The whole country becomes hostile to the regime's forces. But at the same time the fighters of the people are in a difficult situation. They are under resourced. And the firepower is still upper hand firepower with the regime. Our weapons are much less in quality and quantity. So in order to achieve the peaceful solution, you need the other party to engage. The other party calculations are that they want to win and they can win militarily. And these calculations need to be changed first. I think that, of course, you have the Assad regime is not alone. They have very strong allies that they are very committed, like Iran and Russia. So the calculation change should be also of those who are backing the regime. If you go back in the recent history, 2005, when Rafiq Hariri, the prime minister of Lebanon, was assassinated by Assad, there were some credible threats at that time from the United States. And then he immediately pulled out his forces from Lebanon. And recently also in last year, when he used the chemical weapons, there were also a credible threat of using force by the international community and the United States. So immediately he handed over his chemical weapons. So we are now in front of a kind of thinking that can cooperate only under a credible threat or credible use of force or when he thinks that he's become in real danger on the ground, then this only will change the calculations of Assad. So I think that the way of reaching a political solution is, unfortunately, it has to start with military solution. At the beginning, we have to have advancement for the Free Syrian Army on the ground. And this will require two things, more resources in arms, hardware, quality and quantity, and more organization of forces on the ground. And then when this advances happens and when Assad realize that he is not going to win this militarily, together with Iran and Russia, then I think they will come back to negotiating table. So let me turn a little bit. Both of you have used the term we quite a bit. And one of the questions that often is in the media in the West and around the world with regard to Syria and the Syrian opposition is, who is we? That there are reports that it's a very fractured opposition that there is division between what's happening on the ground and what's happening outside of the country with the people who are acting politically. Could you shed some light and give us some insight on what are the relationships at play within the opposition, excluding ISIS, but within the opposition, Islamic Front, FSA, all these groups? And what is the relationship between the people who are acting militarily for the opposition and those who are acting politically? The Syrian coalition is a coalition between political forces, parties, and also local councils, which they manage the liberated areas, the revolutionary movement, the youth people who started the peaceful demonstration and so on, also a representation of the Free Syrian Army, which is the moderate part of the Free Army, the armed movement. More than 50% of the members of the coalition who are members who come and go inside Syria and go outside Syria, mainly in the liberated area, whether it's in the North or South. So the representation, it represents the whole ethnicity of the Syrian people, the whole religions of the Syrian people. There are Christians, Muslims inside. There's Druze. There's Alawite inside the coalition. Also, it's normal in democracy. You will have different opinions about reaching and achieving our goals. But you will not find any split among the group about the main ideas about getting rid of the regime, achieving democracy, and enabling the people to freely elect the General Assembly to rewrite their constitutions and choose their leadership. So it's fair, but also we cannot say that the whole Syrian people has elected the coalition because we are in a worse situation. So the main legitimacy you have is whatever you are seeking to achieve are these representation. They represent the true ones of the Syrian people or not. And what we are seeking, not to replace the Syrian people, not to influence ideology and put specific political program on them, our main target is enabling the Syrian people to freely elect the General Assembly, rewrite their constitution, and freely elect their leadership. We have an executive branch, which is the interim government, which was established by the coalition. The main purpose of the interim government is to provide services for the Syrian people inside Syria. We have an NGO, which is also for humanitarian aid, coordination. It's called the Coordination Unit, the ICU. And their mission is to coordinate between the donors and the people in need of services inside Syria. And we have the Higher Military Council. The Higher Military Council is a representation. They have originally, they are established with 30 members, representing mainly the civilian forces inside Syria who carried arms to defend their families and their homes. So the three bodies, there is a coordination between them. There is a mechanism where the military, Higher Military Council is the council in charge of selecting their leadership and their commanders. They specify five leaders to the coalition. The coalition has to approve one of them. And there is a complete relationship. Many people, they say, OK, why the whole coalition is outside Syria, for example. You know, the situation in Syria, it's not easy. And moving inside Syria in total, the whole coalition, they will become immediately a target for the regime. Recently, we took a decision that the coalition will be moving 80% of its presence inside Syria, leaving only its political arms and foreign relation arms outside Syria. The rest, they will be inside Syria. The interim government will be completely inside Syria. Actually, they started already their services inside Syria. But in order to do it successfully, we need to find ways how to protect the civilian areas where these offices would be located, because immediately they will become a target of the Assad Air Force. So we need to protect the civilian areas where their offices will be located in order to have them effectively present inside Syria. Let me bring Ms. Reem Halaf into the conversation. Turning now to this is the first official visit of the SNC to the United States, the various meetings that you're having. Can you give us a sense of what message you're hoping to convey during your visit and what you're hoping to take away from the visit when you leave? I know that prior to your arrival, there was a foreign mission status that was granted. Some felt that it's not far enough in terms of diplomatic recognition. But could you give us a sense of the message conveyed and what's being hoped to be taken away? Absolutely. First of all, I'd like to apologize to everybody for my tardiness. We were in another event. I think there are several objectives to this visit to Washington and several things that the leadership of the coalition is hoping to gain. First of all, it is not about specific demands. We're asked often about what is the shopping list that we have brought with us to Washington. I think what is more important for the coalition is to work on developing this relation with the United States, both at the level of relations with the administration, with lawmakers in Congress, with the academic and intellectual and think tanks are called, but also with American public opinion through the media. The point is that we believe we have long-term strategic interests together. We already know the administration. Our officials are often in contact with the administration. But it is this overture to the rest of the segments of what makes the decision-making process in America so interesting and important for us. We hope that the image of the coalition, of the opposition, of the revolution in Syria becomes clearer to the people in the US who don't have as much access to events in Syria, who haven't had as much exposure to developments politically in the region or also political developments on an international level. So I think that this is, first and foremost, what the coalition is hoping to achieve in Washington. It will not probably happen in a single visit. I think everybody believes that it is an extremely positive first step. It opens the door to more cooperation, to more communication. This is important for us, that there be more communication, that the American public gets to know what it is that's happening in Syria and not just get bogged down in very cliched titles that you might read in the media. Sometimes there is no other choice but to have a simplistic title because we all understand the constraints that publishers have. But we feel there's a lot more that you don't know about Syria, about what's happening there. You don't know enough about developments. You don't know enough about what the Syrian people are suffering. But more importantly, you don't know enough about what are the aspirations of the Syrian people, of the opposition, and the coalition, which hopes to carry the voice of the people in Syria. This is, I think, probably the most important aspect of the visit to Washington. In addition, obviously, and I'm sure my colleagues have already covered that, in addition to the shopping list, which we hope will be considered positively. Mr. Munzer, there's a lot of talk about, and particularly one of the most popular topics for Syria is extremism, that there's a rising tide of extremism. And we've discussed a bit of the fact that there's these extreme militias on both sides. But with regard to the ones within the opposition, some people fear that they are not going to be able to be controlled, that even Al Qaeda right now can't seem to control some of the more extreme ones. What solutions do you think, or is the SNC thinking about? And what do you think about their potential role in a future Syria? How will they be handled? The extremists are not opposition. We are the opposition. They are stopping the opposition in the back. They came in because the country was because of the regime bombing everywhere and using the army everywhere. Eventually, the country was open. Usually, Al Qaeda uses failed countries as an arena or safe haven. At the same time, Assad regime in 2011 and 2012 committed a lot of massacres. And those massacres, they were videotaped with many women and children being slaughtered. And these pictures, Al Qaeda used those pictures and videos as a recruiting tool to bring people in, the fight. But the people who came, there are some simple-minded people brainwashed. They came in, but they are trapped. They fell in a trap. They found themselves not fighting for saving those people, but they are fighting just for their own agendas and projects of ideology of the extremism. And this is something that the Syrian people cannot tolerate and cannot accept and poses a huge danger on us as a country and the future of the country. So that's why we started, the Free Syrian Army started fighting those extremists of ISIS at the end of last year and through all this time, about five, six months. We noticed that they are also well resourced, one way or another. So of course, you know that Al Qaeda is a global, global threat. It's a global organization. So this is something that we need also to talk with the international community that these resources should be dried up. Why the extremists in Syria? They always have the money and the ammunition. And the moderate elements who are fighting the terrorists of Al Qaeda and the state terrorism of Assad, they are always under resourced. This is something that should be looked up for, because the future of Syria is for the Syrian people who are not, doesn't want neither Al Qaeda nor the tyranny. For the future, I think that the extremists will not have any future in Syria whatsoever. The society does not accept, the Syrian society does not accept those ideas and this ideology. But for the meantime, we have to first get rid of the main problem. You have now 90% of the violence in Syria is committed by the regime. All the heavy artillery, the warplanes, the tanks, the missiles, the Scott. Everything is coming from the regime forces and he's using everywhere. So it's in order to solve the problem in Syria, it's like a train with stations. First station, second station, third station. So the first station is to get rid of that big danger and violence of the regime who caused all these chaos. And the second station, after you get rid of the regime and you reduce all that violent, then you need to deal with the consequences of what happened. And you need to deal with those armed groups who are there to prevent us from reaching the revolution goal, which is freedom of democracy. And those will be the extremists of Al Qaeda and also the extremists and the terrorists whom the regime brought in, Hezbollah and the Iraqi militias. They will be there also, they need to be dealt with. So there are so many things that need to be dealt with and I am sure that the Syrian people can, with a reasonable amount of time, clean the country from all these elements. But unfortunately, although that we are fighting them now, but in order for us to reach a decisive goal into clearing them completely from our country, first we have to pass the first station, which is getting rid of acceleration. So speaking along those lines, we know that there is an upcoming election that's going to be happening where Bashar al-Assad is planning to run and there are some other candidates apparently as well. How is the opposition approaching this election, both politically and sort of on the ground? And what are your thoughts about it? Please, yes. You know, from the basic, this regime is illegitimate. It took the power by force. It wasn't elected freely by the people. So whatever action it takes or comes out of it is illegitimate. The issue is not the election itself. The issue is, are we going as an international community and as a human being? Let a criminal committing daily crimes against its own people, against humanity, war crimes. Are we going to let him go free? What message we, as a humankind, we send to our children, our society, that if you are so criminal and you can get away with it, we'll let you go. This is the real cause. I want to ask one last question and open it up to the floor. Many people, obviously, watching the Syrian situation have really bemoaned the fact that Syrian society has been fractured and devastated in many respects. And then all the sectarian tension, all these different communities fighting with each other. As you look to a future Syria, some people say there's no way that Syria can return to where it was and the type of society it was. What are your thoughts on that? What are your thoughts on sort of, is there a way to reverse some of the fracturing that has occurred even if this elusive peace does occur? I don't know why we always look at the situation in such a negative, with such a negative perspective. Yes, things have gotten a lot worse. Yes, things developed in a way which the revolutionaries had not intended. Yes, we have seen an increase in sentiments which we would have hoped would not have entered Syria. Syria, I remind you, it's very cliche to say, but it is true. It's a mosaic of different religions and sects and ethnicities and nationalities. It's one of the oldest societies in the region in the world. And I would like to stress that it is not the Assad regime which brought this peaceful coexistence to the people of Syria. We often hear nowadays that at least the Assad's protected the minorities or say this is absolute nonsense. There were minorities and majorities, or rather there were different people of different religions and different backgrounds living in Syria for time memorial without needing a regime or an authority to make sure that that peace remained there. Now, of course, today we are in a different situation. It would be absurd not to recognize that we do have now sectarian tensions. These tensions were brought about by the Assad regime by the fact that the group Hezbollah, which is considered a terrorist group in the US, was brought from the early days of the peaceful resolution before it turned into armed resistance, coming to lay claim on, for example, say Daseinab, a mosque which is sacred to all Muslims and saying that this is a Shia shrine that we need to protect from jihadis when there had been no such thing as jihadis and no such thing as armed resistance. Clearly, the introduction of that sectarian rhetoric from the regime was a magnet for the extremists from the other side who couldn't wait to come and lay counterclaim to their rights to defend something. We are today facing a lot more tensions between the different segments of society in Syria. But let us not summarize this conflict or summarize the situation today as one which cannot be resolved because it's too late. Many societies throughout the world in Europe and the US have undergone similar wars, which were even probably more devastating than what we've seen in Syria. We believe that once the cause of the problem is removed, we're not looking at it with rosy colored glasses where nobody's telling you the next day everything will be hunky dory. But we think that once the cause of the problem of the cancer is removed, once with the support of the international community, and we do need that support, we are able to eradicate these terrorist extremist groups which we are the only ones fighting. It will take some time to rebuild. It will take time not only to rebuild physically but to rebuild the confidence that the different segments of society had in their coexistence together. This predates the Assad regime. Please never believe what this propaganda tells you that it is only the regime which protects this coexistence. It existed before it. It will take time. But with the vision that we in the opposition have to have a pluralistic, democratic, secular, civil society and state where the rights of all citizens are protected by the state and by the Constitution rather than talking about different segments, no, everybody will be a citizen. This is what we aspire for and this is where we need help. We will need time to rebuild, but it will get there. Thank you very much. We're going to open it up to the floor now. There's going to be a mic that's circulating. I'll point to you so we'll begin right here in the front. But I wanted to encourage everyone to try to keep the commentary to a minimum and really try to get to the questions so that we can field as many questions as possible. Please. Thank you. My name is Barbara Platt Usher. I'm with the BBC. President Jarba has made it quite clear that he would like the United States or the Western Allies to supply more significant weaponry, especially anti-aircraft missiles to bring about this shift on the battlefield you've been talking about. In your visit here, have you sensed any softening of the US position? Because they're quite wary of that, as we all know. And secondly, I just wanted to ask, you mentioned moving the interim government into Syria, but there was an issue about protection. How are you planning to protect those areas? I mean, as far as I know, no fly zones or no longer have never been on the table and still aren't. So how would you protect those areas from air fire? Thank you. Protection of these areas by supplying the Free Syrian Army in these areas with the capability to defend the civilian areas against the air raids. As you know, on a daily basis, there's these barrel bombs, which the regime targeting the civilian areas heavily, especially in Aleppo area and Darar region. And we need to find a solution to neutralize this type of weapons, take it out of the equation. And this is only provided if we provide the Free Syrian Army with the right weapon to defend themself. We felt very common understanding in the Congress, especially, and the need to act on this, to protect the civilian people and civilian population. And we are hoping that the American administration would look into it with a more serious look here. OK. Gentlemen, right there in the back. Christopher Blanchard with the Congressional Research Service. Given some of the remarks today about extremism, sectarianism, and the sort of balance of views within both the armed and political opposition, I was hoping you might comment a bit further about both the armed and political opposition's relationships with Jabal al-Nusra and the Islamic front. Both groups obviously routinely put out direct messaging that contradicts completely the vision that you just laid out. And so I'm wondering, does the coalition view some of those forces, particularly Nusra and elements of the Islamic front, as extreme or not? Thank you. Al-Nusra is definitely a terrorist group that is part of Al-Qaeda. And of course, the coalition does not recognize them. And they do not, of course, recognize us. They call us infidels. And they want to kill us also. Now, on the ground, as you know, that Al-Qaeda, there are two kinds. There are two groups of Al-Qaeda on the ground. There's the ISIS, which we are fighting now. We fought and we pushed them from many areas, like Idlib, Hama, coastal area, and Aleppo. But they are still controlling Raqqa province and parts of countryside of Aleppo. And these are very dangerous extreme elements. And they are affiliated with Al-Qaeda. And they are also fighting in Iraq, as you know. So this is the first part of Al-Qaeda. The other part of Al-Nusra is having a different behavior than ISIS. But now they start fighting the regime, actually. And now there is now tensions between the Free Syrian Army and Al-Nusra. There are tensions in the south, in Dar'a, and in countryside of Damascus. And we think that eventually they will be, of course, a huge problem between the Free Syrian Army and Al-Nusra, because the Free Syrian Army is from the Syrian people. And the Syrian people does not accept those extreme elements. But what is happening is that there are people, Syrian people who want to fight the regime and who wants to defend themselves. And they find certain groups who has weapons, ammunition. They have the food rations. And sometimes they join those groups without necessarily being convinced with the ideology. That's why I think that we need to work on a plan, like I just said earlier, that the logistics of the extremists should be dried up. And this should be an international collective effort. And the moderate elements, logistics and resources should be opened. And in this case, we can take all these fighters to fight with the moderate elements. And then the core die-hards of the extremists then need to be dealt with and removed from our country. Thank you very much. Excuse me, I have to leave for another event. And my colleagues will take care of them. Yes. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. It's Ilhan Tanar from Turkish Press. I have a couple questions, two questions. One is that there have been credible reports that the Assad regime has been using chemical weapons since the September. According to one report, 30 times and killed every single time citizens. Have you presented any tangible evidence to the US administration here? Or what's your case on that? And the second question is that official, serious US officials are arguing that Assad should go, but the state institutions can be preserved. What's your take on that? Is it possible? Thank you. On the chemical war weapon issue, as you know, the regime has handed out 92% of its talk, of its declared stockpile. We need to make a difference. Whatever they declared, they handed out 92%. There is 8% still in Syria, in the country. Plus, we claim that there is more than whatever they declared they have. This is very important. We need to follow on. Recently, the regime had bombed one area in Kaffir Zeta with TNT barrel bombs mixed with chlorine gas. Also, they used heavily chlorine gas with other type of bombs and bombing areas and suburb of Damascus also. We have documented cases. We have sent these documents to the core 11 group, actually not only to the US. There is an investigation team in Syria, I think, sent within the scope work of the Security Council Resolution 2118. But still, they didn't reach a conclusion on their work. What was your other part? This is very clearly, I mean, in Geneva. We have submitted a roadmap to achieve the transitional, political transition. And it's out of 24 points. And one clause of it clearly says that we are keen on preserving the institution of the states and restructuring them and improving their work, guaranteeing their employment of each state employee and employee in the country, even for security people who are not involved with the crimes against the people. They will be guaranteed to be employed by other branches of the civil government inside Syria. We are keen into protecting the rights of every and each Syrian in Syria. We are not, and we will put all our utmost effort not to repeat whatever mistakes has been done in Iraq, mainly. We will keep our institutions. And we will keep the value of our technical people and even for people who are with the regime. But really, they were not committing any crimes or taking any action against their fellow citizens. Thanks, Manar Guneim, Middle East News Agency, Egypt. Mr. Monzer has just said now that the political solution can never be achieved except with the military solution first. So do you think that the coalition can be able to carry out this fighting against both Assad regime and against the extremists alone? Or do you think that you have to convince the US administration to carry out a limited strike, at least, to help the opposition? Thank you. Thank you. I don't think there's any question of anybody asking the US or any other power to affect military strikes in Syria. The only time that there was such a possibility, as you know, was after the chemical massacre on August 21, 2013, when there was talk that the red line had been crossed. And you all know the story that the president of the US asked for Congress to approve it. But then in the meantime, we had a deal between Russia and the US that OPCW would get all the chemical weapons from the Assad regime. Since then, there has been no talk of the military strike. What we in the coalition say, when we state that we are for a political solution, but in order to get to that political solution, we need these arms to neutralize the air force, is the processes of following. We think it's the Assad regime which believes that it can win this militarily, because it continues to bomb. It continues to defy the international community, for example, with the elections, which is a slap in the face of the international community of the core group, because it is a direct contravention of the Geneva communique, upon which based the Geneva peace talks or negotiations were held. The regime with every action and every declaration it makes is stating to the world and to Syrians that it has no intention to go to a political solution, because clearly it thinks it can win militarily. We think that if we were able to change this balance of powers on the ground, and all we need to do in order to reach that stage is for us to have these anti-aircraft weapons in order to neutralize the monopoly on the air which the regime has. If the regime sees that the Free Syrian Army and the opposition are able to bring down five, 10, 15 helicopters, which are throwing these barbaric barrel bombs now, including with chlorine gas killing children and the elderly, if we can neutralize or at least convince the Assad regime's sponsors, the Russians mainly and the Iranians, that this is as far as it goes, that the international community is now taking a stand to explain, to put forth that position that we're not going to allow this to get any worse. If we reach that stage, we think that this is the way to convince these powers that after all, there is no other way than a political solution. This is why the coalition, as the political umbrella of the Free Syrian Army, is asking for those weapons, not for the sake of fighting to the end, but for the sake of convincing the sponsors of this barbaric regime that you will not be able to continue all the way militarily. You cannot win militarily. And by the way, when we read headlines that the Assad regime is winning, we also think that this is very misleading. Because what the Assad regime controls is basically this corridor between Damascus and now possibly Homs and the coastal area and the Lebanese borders. Had it not been for the full support of Hezbollah, of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, of the Iraqi militias, and of course, the military and political and financial support of Russia, how would Assad be able to continue holding on to power? The vast majority of Syria is not under the control of the Assad regime. It's either under the control of the opposition and the Free Syrian Army, or unfortunately, some areas under the control of terrorist groups, especially in Raqqa and in that area where ISIS has established the headquarters of its emirates. And this is what we're saying. We're fighting both of these terrors, which is the Assad regime and its terrorist groups, and the terror of extremist jihadis. And we have still managed to make sure that Assad is not able to regain any territory it has lost. If we were able to neutralize the air power, we believe that quickly we could get its sponsors, the regime's sponsors, to understand that the only way is political, which is what we have been calling for from the beginning. Gentlemen in the red shirt. Cameron MacDonald, High Point University. I was wondering, recently an Iranian regime has said that they've clearly declared victory due to a lack of weak US response in result of the chemical weapons and enabling the extremist Islamist terrorist groups. I was just wondering, what is your reaction to that, and what do you think of it? The Iranian. Recently, there was a report that various Iranian policymakers have declared that the Assad regime has won, and that this is because the US is not willing to do anything on chemical weapons. As we know, the Iranians, they had some public announcement worse than this. They are claiming that this is their war, and it's not the war of Assad, and Assad just a tool in this war. And they called Syria as one of their province from within Iran itself. And that's why now you find really Syria, if you take it in legal terms, is an occupied country now, occupied by foreign forces, mainly by Iran. This morning, actually, I was talking to somebody who was still inside the government. And he was complaining mainly that they have no say now inside Syria, that commands are given directly by the Iranian officers who are running and commanding even Syrian fighting units. And these forces now are the trusted forces by the president of the regime itself, Bashar al-Assad. And he trusts no more any of the Syrians, even his immediate close circle. OK, let me start with this gentleman here. Jack Greenblatt, please now. I had a question about the reaching out to various constituencies in Syria, obviously that are sympathetic or that are closer to the Assad regime. And of course, the most important would be the Alawite community who, you know, I do think a significant percentage of them are absolutely frightened of a defeat by Assad. So what are you doing to allay these fears and to try to reach out? On various levels. First level, which we made our roadmap and political program clear to all Syrian people. We declared in it clearly that the government has the responsibility and the obligation to protect all its citizens. And that all citizens, they will have equal rights and responsibilities under the rule of law and constitution. Second part, we have a program which we run inside Syria. And we are in contact with many of the Alawite party. And now we feel that people staying inside Syria are much more helpful to our cause than leaving Syria and working from outside Syria. The whole Alawite family actually was taken as a hostage by Bashar al-Assad himself. From even before, as my colleague said a little while ago, before the revolution started to carry on when it was peaceful, the regime took a strategy. He knew that he cannot continue, empower and stay empowered unless he takes the Alawite sect all as a hostage. He knew they will not fight for him in person and for his presidency, but they will fight if he convinced them that their existence actually on the table. So immediately what they did, he put some protection around the Alawite villages. He immediately put some videos on YouTube and other media sources putting very clear accent of people's soldiers committing crimes against Sunnis with an accent of Alawites. So he will strive on raising up these issues. But we are sure we are sending clear message by our political program by having special programs inside Syria to support the moderate element. And as you know, there is permanent Alawite in the opposition right now, whether inside Syria or outside Syria. Thank you, John Hudson with Foreign Policy Magazine. As you've acknowledged, there's a two-front war that the Syrian opposition has to fight, the moderate Syrian opposition. And that's the Assad regime and the extremists who are part of the opposition. This is a difficult question given the fog of war. But I was wondering if both of you could provide some sort of an estimate of the size the extremists have in the proportion of the opposition. Are the extremists the majority or the minority within the opposition to the Assad regime? Zach, in order to get a clear picture, let's take it in different aspects. The whole armed movement on the regime side, opposition side, and extremist side, all it amounts to a little less than 6% of the total Syrian population. So clearly, we will not let 6% of the population to write the future of Syria. Out of this 6%, you take the regime forces out, and we take the opposition forces. The extremist forces, you are talking about Al Qaeda only. It's less than 10%. If the extremists, say, or organization who try to fight, but they have their own ideology, which they want to impose on the Syrian people by using military means, then you are talking additional 20% of them. But the issue is the 10% of Al Qaeda, they are strengthened by the government itself, by Assad regime. When they carry air attacks, for example, they go attack the free Syrian army positions and leave Assad's position out. They don't attack them at all. Within Assad, there is different groups. There is a group which fight the regime and fight us. And there is a group which fight us and doesn't fight the regime at all. So within each section, you can break them into different. But the command that they are well supplied, and this is their main strength. And the main flow is coming out, mainly of Iraq. I would have just added, I think my colleague answered your question, but I think I would be very weary of constantly referring to extremists in the opposition. This is a term we hear a lot. And we're getting lost with these terms. Who is the opposition? Who is not the opposition? The free Syrian army has been described by UN Commission as the moderate nationalist forces. And we believe this is a very accurate description. In the free Syrian army, there is no room for the ideology of these extremists, which is why we generally do not like or do not believe that it is accurate to speak of extremists in the opposition. Al-Qaeda is not the opposition. And yes, there are a couple of groups which are much smaller in numbers. One of the, somebody in the audience mentioned Jabhat al-Nusra, Jabhat al-Nusra, yes, are extremists. And they are jihadis, but they are fighting the regime. But they're not part of the opposition. Or at least they're not part of what we consider that big umbrella. So I just would really appreciate it. We would really like to clarify these terms, because we feel that this has contributed to the misunderstanding of what's going on in Syria when we just label everything as the opposition and consider that extremists and less extremists or lesser extremists are the ones fighting Assad. It's not really, I think, accurate to put it that way. What do you call al-Qaeda? They're not opposition. The point I'm saying, no, no, no. The point I'm making, they're not opposition. You said the extremist opposition. I'm telling you, Al-Qaeda is not the opposition. That's what I'm saying. So unfortunately, we're going to have to wrap it up there, because we're over time. You're welcome to greet them afterwards, but we're at 4.05, and I want to get everyone out. Thank you so much for coming, and I appreciate you making time, and thank you to our panelists. Thank you for having us. Thank you very much. Thank you.