SYRIAN DICTATOR ASSAD BUYING ANTIMISSILE SYSTEM FROM RUSSIA

DAMASCUS— Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Damascus is negotiating with regime ally Moscow to buy the latest Russian antimissile system to repel Israeli and American attacks.

“It’s natural that we should have such systems,” he said, quoted by Syria’s official Sana agency on Thursday, the same day as Damascus accused Israel of firing several missiles at a military position near its international airport.

“Israel has been committing aggressions on the Arab states surrounding it since its creation in 1948,” Assad said in the interview with Venezuelan channel Telesur.

“It is natural for us to negotiate with the Russians now with a view to strengthening (our) systems, whether to face any Israeli threats from the air or the threats of American missiles,” said Assad.

“That has become a real possibility after the recent American aggression on Al-Shayrat air base in Syria,” he added.

The US military fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at the base overnight on April 6-7 following a chemical attack on a rebelheld town in Idlib province that left 87 dead, including many children.

Washington said the regime base was the launch pad for the attack, a charge Damascus denies.

Russia’s military said a day after the attack that Syria’s air defenses would be boosted.

“To protect Syria’s most sensitive infrastructure, a complex of measures will be imple- mented in the near future to strengthen and improve the effectiveness of the Syrian armed forces’ air defense system,” said spokesperson Igor Konashenkov.

Israel had carried out multiple air strikes in Syria since the country’s civil war erupted in 2011, most of which targeted arms convoys or warehouses of its Lebanese arch-foe Hezbollah, a key supporter of Assad’s regime.

Assad also said that no country which had aided the Syrian opposition should be allowed to take part in Syria’s post-war reconstruction.

“All the states which stood against the Syrian people and took part in the destruction and sabotage will never take part in rebuilding Syria. That is final,” he said.

International organizations estimate that reconstructing Syria, devastated by a six-year war that has left over 320,000 dead, will cost upwards of $300 billion.

—AFP Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s war on his own people has killed thousands of children and forced the flight of thousands of others, like this girl who fled to the Syria-Turkey border.