Syrian president Bashar al-Assad said complete victory for the regime would come “sooner or later” after it recaptured all of Aleppo city, which he said “rubbed the rebels’ noses in the dirt”. In a rare televised address, Assad said the provincial capital, which borders the last opposition stronghold of Idlib in the north of the country, would "return stronger than it was before." "This liberation does not mean the end of the war, and does not mean the end of the schemes nor the end of terrorism or the surrender of enemies. But it means that we rubbed their noses in the dirt as a prelude for complete victory and ahead of their defeat, sooner or later,” the president said defiantly.