Britain’s bombing campaign against Islamic State (ISIS) extremists in Syria is “illegal” and is destined to fail, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad predicted on Sunday, AFP reports.
“It will be harmful and illegal and it will support terrorism as happened after the coalition started its operation a year or so (ago),” the Syrian president was quoted as having told The Sunday Times after British MPs voted on December 2 to join the bombing campaign over Syria.
Terror, he said, was like a cancer which needed to be tackled with a “comprehensive” strategy which would involve working with troops on the ground.
“You cannot cut out part of the cancer. You have to extract it. This kind of operation is like cutting out part of the cancer. That will make it spread in the body faster,” said Assad, according to AFP.
“You cannot defeat (ISIS) through air strikes alone. You cannot defeat them without cooperation with forces on the ground. You cannot defeat them if you do not have buy-in from the general public and the government,” he added.
“They are going to fail again,” he predicted.
Britain began its bombing campaign early on Thursday, hitting an oil field held by IS just hours after a decisive parliamentary vote authorized air strikes.
In addition, on Saturday British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande agreed to “intensify their cooperation” in the fight against ISIS.
Momentum for Britain to join the air campaign grew after ISIS jihadists claimed a deadly series of attacks on Paris last month which killed 130 people and wounded more than 350.
In arguing in favor of the strikes, Prime Minister David Cameron’s claimed there were 70,000 moderate Syrian forces on the ground who could help secure territory cleared by air strikes, prompting ridicule from Assad, who denounced it as “classical farce”.
“Where are the 70,000 moderates he is talking about? There is no 70,000. There is no 7,000,” he said.
In late September, Russia began its own bombing campaign in Syria in support of Assad over a year after an international coalition began its strikes targeting the ISIS group.
Russia is coordinating its air strikes with Damascus, unlike the U.S.-led coalition, whose action has been criticized by Assad and his government as ineffectual. Assad said the Russians had entered the conflict in a “legal way” — with Syria’s permission.
Assad has been critical of the West’s approach towards the conflict in his country, accusing Western countries of supporting “terrorists” – the term he uses to describe even the moderate rebel groups fighting his regime.
He was particularly critical of France in recent weeks, saying following the deadly terror attacks in Paris that they were caused in part by “French policy”. He later said his country is willing to share intelligence information with France but only if Paris changes its policies in the region.
