Assad says West growing weaker in Syria

In Sunday Times interview, embattled Syrian leader says only Russia ‘made the difference’ in fight against Islamic State

President Bashar Assad claimed Western powers are “becoming much weaker” in Syria, in a confident interview published Sunday in The Sunday Times.

“In the past if I said anything, people would say the Syrian president is disconnected from reality. Now it’s different. The West is becoming much weaker,” Assad told the British weekly. “They don’t have a leg to stand on explaining to people what’s going on.”

The embattled Syrian leader even blamed Western nations for allowing the terrorist Islamic State group to flourish.

“ISIS (the Islamic State group) was smuggling oil and using Iraqi oilfields under American satellites and drones to make money, and the West was not saying anything,” he said. Russia, on the other hand, “interfered and ISIS started to shrink in every sense of the word.”

A Russian long range bomber Tu-22M3 flies during a strike above an undisclosed location in Syria on Sunday, Aug. 14, 2015. (Russian Defense Ministry press service photo via AP)

Assad acknowledged the key role played by Russian airstrikes, saying that they had “made the difference” in the fight against IS. “They have firepower we don’t have.”

He added: “At the end we were fighting an unlimited reserve of terrorists coming to Syria and we struggled, so Russian firepower and Iranian support has compensated.”

Assad also confirmed his determination to crush rebel forces in Aleppo, the one-time economic powerhouse that has been under a three-month government siege.

“Aleppo is an issue where terrorists have occupied part of the city, and we need to get rid of them,” he said.

Smoke billows from the frontline district of Dahiyet al-Assad following an attack by rebels on Syrian regime forces in the northern city of Aleppo on October 29, 2016. (AFP/ KARAM AL-MASRI)

More than 300,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict erupted with anti-government protests in March 2011, and the situation for civilians in Aleppo is particularly dire.

Asked if he could sleep with the knowledge of the children being killed every day in Aleppo and elsewhere, Assad laughed and said, “I know the meaning of that question. I sleep regular, I sleep and work and eat normal and do sports.”