BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian government forces need time to win a war that has drawn in foreign players, President Bashar Assad said in an advance excerpt of a television interview to be aired in full later today.

The acknowledgment is a sign Assad’s regime may be hunkering down for a drawn out struggle against rebels who have brought the fight to a multitude of fronts, including Damascus, the capital and Assad’s seat of power; Aleppo, the nation’s largest city, and a string of cities and towns across the Arab nation.

In the interview, Assad said government forces are “moving forward” but that the war’s outcome had yet to be decided and that this would take time. It aired on the private Dunya channel, which is majority owned by Rami Makhlouf, a cousin of Assad and one of Syria’s wealthiest men.