Assad says West is stoking Syrian war

BEIRUT: Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview published yesterday that the West was fuelling the devastating war in his country, now in its eighth year, with the aim of toppling him.

Assad told the Mail on Sunday that Western nations had lied about chemical attacks in Syria and supported terrorist groups there, while Russia had supported his government against the foreign “invasion”.

Assad reiterated his long-held position that the uprising against his rule was part of a conspiracy to remove a leader who did not go along with Western policies in the region. Syria is allied with Iran and Russia, and has had turbulent relations with the West.

Syria is technically at war with Israel, which occupies the Syrian Golan Heights, but a ceasefire has largely held since the 1970s.

“The whole approach towardw Syria in the West is ‘we have to change this government, we have to demonise this president, because they don’t suit our policies anymore’,” Assad said. “They tell lies, they talk about chemical weapons, they talk about the bad president killing the good people, freedom, peaceful demonstration.”

Syria’s conflict began in 2011 with peaceful protests against the Assad family’s decades-long rule. The government’s violent response to the protests, and the eventual rise of an armed insurgency, tipped the country into a civil war that has claimed nearly half a million lives.

Since then, Western nations and independent experts have accused the government of carrying out several chemical weapons attacks; most recently in April, in an attack near Damascus that reportedly killed dozens of people and prompted Western airstrikes. The government has denied ever using chemical weapons.

Assad also dismissed reports that Israel had conducted recent airstrikes in Syria with tacit Russian co-operation. Russia has provided crucial military support to Assad’s forces, waging an air campaign since 2015 that turned the tide of the war in Assad’s favour. Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah group have also provided extensive military support.

“Russia never co-ordinated with anyone against Syria, either politically or militarily,” Assad said. “How could they help the Syrian army advancing and at the same time work with our enemies in order to destroy our army?”

Israel carried out a wave of airstrikes against Iranian forces in Syria last month. The lack of any Russian response, despite the heavy Russian presence in the skies over Syria, suggested that Moscow might have been notified ahead of time.

“We are fighting the terrorists, and those terrorists are supported by the British government, the French government, the Americans and their puppets whether in Europe or in our region,” Assad said.