Bashar al-Assad (b. 1965)

With every treacherous shell that had fallen, the enemies’ hopes would grow that Aleppo would become another Aleppo, one that never existed throughout history, an Aleppo that does not constitute with its twin Damascus the wings by which the homeland soars; rather an Aleppo whose people would stand with traitors in front of masters, kneeling and prostrating themselves before them, begging for a few dollars and much disgrace. That was in their dreams; but in our real world, with every shell that fell, fear fell and the will to challenge grew. With every martyr, nationalist spirit grew and faith in the homeland became stronger. In our real world, it remained the real Aleppo, the Aleppo of history, nobility, and authenticity. And because it is so, its people did not settle for steadfastness just in the sense of bearing of pain and suffering and acceptance of the status quo; but rather in the sense of work and production that persisted throughout the years of the siege despite the conditions that contradict any economic sense.

Assad Says Aleppo Had to Pay a Great Price, The Syrian Observer (Feb. 19, 2020), 2020

You have to convince your audiences, you cannot mention such a picture without verifying who are those and where and everything about, just to put it in front of the audience, tell them “they’ve been killed by the Syrian soldiers.” At the end, these are allegations. We have to talk about concrete evidence, at the end. That’s how you can base your judgment. Anyone can say whatever he wants.

Interview with Yahoo News, (2017), 2017

The most important factor is how long are the supporters of those terrorists are keep going to keep supporting them, especially Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, with endorsements of some Western countries including United States, if you don't have that support it won't take more than a few months....That depends on how much the support of terrorist have in Turkey, in Saudi money to have more terrorists coming to Syria, their aim is to prolong the war, so they can prolong it if they want, they've already succeeded in that. That depends on that. If you're talking about how much is going to take as only Syrian conflict, isolated conflict, this is what it won't take for a few months but if it is not isolated conflict as it is the case today, with the interferences of many regional and international powers, it will be going to take some time, and no one has the answer as we have, of course, nobody knows how the war is going to develop...

Interview with Bill Neely (July 2016) on "NBC: Exclusive Interview with Bashar al-Assad", 2016

They may attack civillians, and I cannot blame the innocents in the United States for the bad intentions of their officials, this is not correct, and as I said many times, I don't consider the United States as direct enemy as they don't occupy my land.

Bashar al-Assad, Interview with Bill Neely (July 2016) on "NBC: Exclusive Interview with Bashar al-Assad", 2016

Talk about the reality, about the facts, when to talk about children being killed, children of who? where? how? you're talking about propaganda, about media campaign, about sometimes fake pictures on the internet, we cannot talk but ones of the facts. We can talk about the facts, I cannot talk about allegations.

Interview with Bill Neely (July 2016) on "NBC: Exclusive Interview with Bashar al-Assad", 2016

Since the beginning of this crisis, we have the same motto "Assad must go" many times from nearly every Western officials in different level whether leader or foreign minister and other officials...we never cared about it...we never, so you cannot talk about this threat, this is an interference in our internal issues; we're not going to respond to, as long as i have the support of Syrian people, I don't care about whether...including the President of United States himself, anyone, so it's same for us, that's why...say Clinton and Trump and what Obama said, for me nothing, we don't put it on our political map; we don't waste our time with those rhetorics or even 'demands'

Interview with Bill Neely (July 2016) on "NBC: Exclusive Interview with Bashar al-Assad", 2016

When we talk about "clean war," when there is no casualties, no civilians, no innocent people to be killed, that doesn't exist, no one could make it, no war in the world...

Interview with Bill Neely (July 2016) on "NBC: Exclusive Interview with Bashar al-Assad", 2016

The policy is crucial thing for us, when they started supporting the terrorists with such projects, or plans, or steps; this is where you can have more chaos in the world, that's another question, Do the United States have interests in having more chaos around the world or the United States have more interests in having stability around the world? That's another question, of course the United States can create chaos, they've been creating chaos for the last 56 years around the world, It's not something new. Are they going to make it more...worse, more prevailing? That's another question. But it's not about me, it's not about the president, it's about the whole situation in the world, 'cause you cannot separate the situation in Syria from the situation in the Middle East, when the Middle East is not stable, the world cannot be stable.

Bashar al-Assad, Interview with Bill Neely (July 2016) on "NBC: Exclusive Interview with Bashar al-Assad", 2016

None of these allegations you mentioned are concrete, all of them are allegations. You can bring photos from anyone and say this is torture. Who took the pictures? Who is he? Nobody knows. There is no verification of any of this evidence, so it’s all allegations without evidence... It’s funded by Qatar, and they say it’s an anonymous source. So nothing is clear or proven. The pictures are not clear which person they show. They’re just pictures of a head, for example, with some skulls. Who said this is done by the government, not by the rebels? Who said this is a Syrian victim, not someone else? For example, photos published at the beginning of the crisis were from Iraq and Yemen.

President al-Assad Interview with Foreign Affairs Magazine (27 January 2015), 2015

Whatever (Valerie) Amos or any other official or any organization say something against us doesn't mean it's real. We have to verify what they say and is it the part of propaganda? is it politicized? or what...

Interview with Jeremy Bowen (9 February 2015) on "Syria conflict: BBC exclusive interview with President Bashar al-Assad", 2015

We are facing an external attack against us, which is more dangerous than any other previous wars... We are dealing with those who are extremists, who only know the language of killing and criminality.

As quoted by Holly Yan et. al. Al-Assad touts plan for resolution, says enemies of Syria 'will go to hell', CNN (Jan. 17, 2013), 2013

[Enemies of Syria] are the enemies of the people and the enemies of God. And the enemies of God will go to hell.

As quoted by Holly Yan et. al. Al-Assad touts plan for resolution, says enemies of Syria 'will go to hell', CNN (Jan. 17, 2013), 2013

They are not my forces. They are military forces that belong to the government.… I don't own them. I am [the] president. I don't own the country so they are not my forces.

Interview with Barbara Walters (7 Dec. 2011) on the military escalation of the Syrian conflict, 2011

When, but you, to be frank with you, Barbara, I, you don't live here...how did you know all this? you have to be here to see. We don't see this. So it cannot depend on what you hear in the United States.

Interview with Barbara Walters (December 2011) ABC News, 2011

[T]here is no such things as "Islamic terrorism," because terrorism differs from Islam. There's just terrorism, not Islamic terrorism. But the term "Islamic terrorism" has become widespread.

"If Sanctions Are Imposed on Syria, the Entire World Will Pay the Price", MEMRI (December 2005), 2005

[The Jews] tried to kill the principles of all religions with the same mentality in which they betrayed Jesus Christ and the same way they tried to betray and kill the Prophet Muhammad.

As quoted in "The disappearance of the Jews", The Economist (May 10, 2001), 2001

You are mixing between the protesters and the killings, it's different, now we are having terrorists in many places...killing, not only now, from the very beginning, now it's recognized by the media that's the difference, that from the very first few weeks we had those terrorists they are getting more and more, more aggressive, they have been killing. we have 1100 soldiers and policemen killed, who killed them? "peaceful demonstrators"? this is not logical, this is unpalatable...

Interview with Barbara Walters (December 2011) ABC News, 1100

Not there's no Holocaust, let say they "exaggerated" the Holocaust. We don't say many people...but they say there's Holocaust but they are exagerating, so there's such perception of this event of this title, the Holocaust, in our region...It's not the matter how many were killed, six million or one million, or half...killing is killing, I mean how many Soviets were killed? eight million, so why didn't we talk about them? the problem is not how many were killed. How do they do use it? what do the Palestinians have to do to the Holocaust to pay the price? This is one question we asked...We know that there was massacre against Jewish and against others...what's going on in Palestine we see it the same way, but you don't see it the same way...

I'm not a puppet. I wasn't made by the west to go to the west or any other country. I'm Syrian. I'm made in Syria. I have to live in Syria and die in Syria.