Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has dismissed as politically motivated western allegations that he used chemical weapons and warned Washington that any US military intervention would fail, in an interview published in a Russian newspaper on Monday.
"Failure awaits the United States as in all previous wars it has unleashed, starting with Vietnam and up to the present day," he told the Izvestia daily when asked what would happen if Washington decided to strike or invade Syria.
Assad said Syrian government forces had been close to where rebel forces say chemical weapons were used last week during the country's more than two-year-old civil war.
"Would any state use chemical or any other weapons of mass destruction in a place where its own forces are concentrated? That would go against elementary logic," Assad told Izvestia, a pro-Kremlin newspaper.
Russia has been Assad's most important international ally throughout the civil war, supplying his troops with arms and resisting pressure at the UN for tighter sanctions on Damascus.
Asked about the arms deliveries, Assad said: "I want to say that all contracts that have been concluded with Russia are being fulfilled." » | Reuters in Moscow | Monday, August 26, 2013
