Bashar al-Assad
Syria's President Bashar al-Assad answers questions during an interview with al-Manar's journalist Amro Nassef, in Damascus, Syria, in this handout photograph released by Syria's national news agency SANA on August 25, 2015. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he was open to the idea of a coalition against Islamic State but indicated there was little chance of it happening with his enemies, casting further doubt on a Russian plan to forge an alliance against the militant group. Reuters/SANA/Handout via Reuters

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said it would not be enough to defeat Islamic State militants only. He said it was important to defeat terrorism itself.

The Syrian president gave a detailed interview to RT which told him that he had defied Western predictions about his imminent fall. He said defeating terrorism was critical for implementing development for the people of Syria. Assad said more prominent organizations were ISIS and al-Nusra, declared as terrorist groups by the Security Council.

“When you have terrorism, and you have the destruction of the infrastructure, you won’t have the basic needs of living, so many people leave because of the terrorism and because they want to earn their living somewhere in this world,” Assad told RT.

Assad criticized the West for having double standards regarding the ongoing refugee crisis. “Actually, it’s like the West now is crying for the refugees with one eye and aiming at them with a machinegun with the second one, because actually those refugees left Syria because of the terrorism, mainly because of the terrorists and because of the killing, and second because of the results of terrorism,” the Syrian president said.

While Assad has been critical of Western powers, he has received consistent support from Russia which openly talks about providing military weapons to the Assad regime. According to a U.S. official, four Russian military helicopters have arrived at the airbase in Syria.

AllSource Analysis provided satellite images of the four helicopters to CNN. It said the images had been taken on Tuesday. The Pentagon said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was communicating with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Russia’s military advancements in Syria.

Russia insists that it helps the Syrian government with military supply so that the Assad regime can fight ISIS more intensely. Several Western countries which blame Assad heavily for the political unrest in Syria have been highly critical of Russia’s support for him.

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