Ending the conflict in Syria and Iraq is key to solving the migrant crisis facing Europe, a senior US official has told the BBC.
Gen John Allen, special presidential envoy for the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State (IS) group, said IS had to be defeated and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "had to go".
He said it was "heart-wrenching" to see people fleeing the region.
But he added that the coalition was in a stronger place than a year ago.
He also praised Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi as "a real partner".
Reuters Image caption Most of the migrants pouring into Europe are from war-torn Syria
Europe is struggling to deal with an enormous influx of refugees and migrants, mostly from Syria but also from Iraq and other countries, fleeing violence and poverty.
"The millions who are fleeing their homes, that's not just about Daesh," said Gen Allen, using an Arabic name for IS.
"It's also about the conditions in the region, the horrendous conditions that are a direct result of Bashar al-Assad and several years of the civil war."
'Heart-wrenching scenes'
Asked if he felt responsible for those fleeing to Europe, he said: "I feel that we can help them. We have worked very hard to help in the humanitarian crisis in that region."
"We've got to solve the conflict though. The conflict has got to be solved at a political level and a global level."
"We are going to see that the manifestation of that conflict will play out in a number of ways - right now it is playing out in this heart-wrenching vision of the people who are streaming out of the region."
Gen Allen described IS as a "manifestation of an absence of hope for so many people".
AFP Image caption France is among the coalition countries flying missions over Syria
"This instability has been created by Bashar al-Assad and that regime. He ultimately chose to make war on his own people. That ultimately created the crisis that we face today.
"So it's not just about dealing with Daesh, it's about creating the conditions that can put us on track for a political diplomatic solution as well."
He added: "Bashar al-Assad has got to go. He is both a point and a representation of what has caused so much instability in the region and so many people to want to fight, to fight him and to fight each other."
He said IS was being pushed back on several fronts and progress had also been made on a political level in Iraq.
AFP Image caption Four years of conflict have left some Syrian cities in ruins
"Where we are today compared to where we were a year ago is pretty dramatically different," he said.
"In the context of just governance alone in Iraq we are dealing with a real partner in Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. He's come a very long way in the year that he's been prime minister, farther certainly than he predecessor."
Last September, US President Barack Obama announced the formation of a broad international coalition to combat IS, which has seized large swathes of Syria and Iraq.
Despite the coalition's efforts, militants have made gains in some areas, including at Ramadi in Iraq and at Palmyra in Syria.
Iraq's government promised to retake Ramadi back in May, but so far it has only managed to encircle the city.
However, Kurdish forces have forced IS back to a frontline about 50km (30 miles) from the city of Raqqa - the group's de facto capital in Syria.
Closing borders pushes migrants back towards Hungary
"How tens of thousands of migrants could help save Europe"
There has been a rise in the number of refugees passing through remote village of Rabe
Sat, Mar 5, 2016, 01:00 Daniel McLaughlin in Rabe
[ 2 images ]
Though it only has one street and fewer than 100 inhabitants, Rabe commands a view of three countries.
From this remote village, the rest of Serbia stretches away to the south and west, while to the north lies Hungary and to the east Romania.
The location has never been of much more than curiosity value to Rabe, where the only work is in the fields, and the main attraction aside from the “triple border” views is the fierce fruit brandy that locals brew in their backyards.
Rabe has long been poor but peaceful, moving to a rural rhythm that brought little wealth but always offered some assurance as to what each day would bring.
Ripples of change touched Rabe last summer, when a few migrants drifted this way from Horgos, a village 40km to the west. It found itself on the main route for a million people trekking through the Balkans to western Europe.
The ripples were followed by a jolt, as Hungary vowed to stop migrants entering the country by building a 4m high, 175km security barrier along its entire border with Serbia, before extending it along the Croatian frontier.
Soon Hungarian soldiers were driving posts into fields along the northern side of Rabe and erecting a fence topped with gleaming coils of razor wire.
Silent warning
Now the fence runs as far as the eye can see and is monitored from watchtowers, by patrols of Hungarian border guards and, in Rabe, more modestly by a pair of Serb policemen who nose their Land Rover out of the bushes to question anyone lingering too long or taking photos of the vast steel oddity.
If the barrier stands as Hungary’s silent warning to refugees, then Romania is now responding in noisier fashion, by regularly sending a helicopter to swoop low over the fields to search for people sneaking around the eastern edge of the fence.
Of all the disconcerting changes to their quiet life in Rabe, however, it is recent nocturnal activity that most unsettles the villagers.
“Most evenings refugees come through here. We see them, and we hear all our dogs barking in the middle of the night. Usually they come in private cars, which drop them off at the edge of the village, and they walk towards the border,” says Attila who – like all his neighbours in Rabe – asks that his real name not be used.
“It’s picked up in the last two or three weeks,” says his friend, Laszlo.
“I don’t know who’s bringing them here. But if I did I might join them,” he adds with a bleak laugh. “They probably make good money.”
The men say the largest group of refugees arrived in a bus accompanied by Serbian police cars – a story corroborated separately by others in the village.
Their comments chimed with accounts from people working with migrants in Belgrade, who said Serbian police had taken refugees from the Sid camp near Croatia and left them at the Hungarian border, to ease pressure on the facility now that Balkan states are enforcing strict daily limits on admissions.
“There used to be a little bench there, but the migrants used it for firewood,” says Emese, pointing to the now-empty grass verge outside her little cottage in Rabe and across the road to saplings that had been freshly and roughly cut.
“They chopped down those small trees too and made a fire near the church. By morning they were gone. I suppose they tried to get through the fence, but I’ve no idea if they managed it.”
Hungary’s fence diverted hundreds of thousands of migrants through Croatia and Slovenia, but now that those countries are sharply restricting entry, more people are trying to breach the barrier: Hungarian police caught 2,398 people entering illegally from Serbia in February, compared to just 553 in January.
Strong objections
Those who are arrested are put through a fast-track criminal court procedure that Hungary introduced specially to deal with migrants and refugees, despite strong objections from rights groups.
“Several elements of the new legislation and policy are in clear breach of EU law,” the HHC said, warning that Hungary was heading towards “de facto self-exclusion . . . from the Common European Asylum System.”
In the absence of a co-ordinated EU response to the crisis, however, many countries have followed Hungary’s lead by building border fences and introducing ad-hoc restrictions on the movement and treatment of asylum seekers.
Despite this crackdown, January and February saw 10 times more migrants arrive in Europe than during the same period last year, creating vast demand for traffickers who offer to smuggle them, for a price, through “closed” frontiers.
“Beside the ‘legal’ route, there are trafficking routes that are hidden,” said Tibor Varga, a pastor who has worked for several years with migrants passing through Subotica, a Serbian city 10km from the border with Hungary.
“Around here refugees are now in smaller groups and more dispersed than before the fence was built. But the routes still operate, and everyone takes a cut: the smugglers – local and foreign – the police, and taxi and bus drivers,” he says.
Humanitarian crisis
Amid warnings of a humanitarian crisis in Greece, where more than 30,000 migrants and refugees are now stuck, EU and Turkish leaders will meet on Monday to try to resolve Europe’s worst refugee crisis since the second World War.
The EU’s dithering has made Orban’s tough stance more popular in Hungary and elsewhere, including Rabe, despite its being on the “wrong” side of his fence.
“The EU told Orban there would be no problem. But his warnings were right, and building the fence was brilliant,” says Attila.
“Orban is defending Europe: if they want to fix this crisis, they should listen to him.”
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