AP and Assad

AP interview with Bashar al Assad

via offGuardian

September 25, 2016

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — He's been stigmatized internationally, a contentious figure presiding over a ruinous civil war that seems to slip into further depravity every day. But in his power base in the Syrian capital, President Bashar Assad projected confidence — conceding nothing to his critics, and accusing the U.S. of derailing a cease-fire and lacking the "will" to fight extremists in his country.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Assad rejected U.S. accusations that Syrian or Russian planes struck an aid convoy in Aleppo this week and that his troops were preventing food from entering the city's rebel-held areas. He maintained deadly airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition on Syrian troops last weekend were intentional, dismissing American officials' statements that they were an accident.

President Assad gives his view of recent and dangerous developments in the proxy war between NATO and the Syrian Arab Army, and the short-lived “ceasefire.” 

Read the transcript here.