If Aleppo is Under Siege, How Can the People be Alive: Syrian Prez

President Bashar Assad said deadly US airstrikes on Syrian troops last week were intentional, dismissing American officials’ statements that they were an accident. Assad also said the US lacked “the will” to join forces with Russia in fighting extremists.

Neither Syria Nor Russia Attacked the Aid Convoy: Assad

Assad also rejected US accusations that Syrian or Russian planes struck an aid convoy in Aleppo or that his troops were preventing food from entering the city’s rebel-held eastern neighborhoods, blaming the US for the collapse of a cease-fire many had hoped would bring relief to the war-ravaged country.

The interview with the Syrian leader was conducted in a presidential palace in Damascus by Ian Phillips, AP’s Vice President for International News.

Assad, who inherited power from his father and is now in his 16th year in office, cut a confident figure during the interview, a sign of how his rule, which once seemed threatened by the rebellion, has been solidified by his forces’ military advances and by the air campaign of his ally Russia.

The Syrian capital, seat of Assad’s power, has stayed relatively untouched throughout the conflict, spared the devastation inflicted on other, opposition-held areas of the country. In recent months, Assad’s forces have taken rebel strongholds in suburbs of the capital, bolstering security and reducing the threat of mortar shells.

American Officials Have No Credibility: Assad

The attack on the aid convoy outside Aleppo took place on Monday night, hitting a warehouse as aid workers unloaded cargo and triggering huge explosions.

Assad dismissed the claims by US officials that Syria or Russia were involved in the attack, saying whatever American officials say “has no credibility” and is “just lies.” Like Syria, Russia has denied carrying out the convoy bombing.

Despite extensive evidence to the contrary, Assad repeatedly denied that his forces were besieging opposition-held eastern Aleppo, which has become a symbol both of resistance and also the high price civilians are paying in the war.

He flatly denied claims of malnutrition and a chronic lack of medical supplies.

If there’s really a siege around the city of Aleppo, people would have been dead by now.

Bashar al Assad, President, Syria

Assad scoffed at the idea that Syria’s “White Helmets” — civil defense volunteers in opposition held areas seen by many as symbols of bravery and defiance — might be considered for a Nobel Peace Prize after a nomination earlier this year.

“What did they achieve in Syria?” he said. “I would only give a prize to whoever works for the peace in Syria.”

The group shared this year’s Right Livelihood Award, sometimes known as the “Alternative Nobel,” with activists from Egypt and Russia and a Turkish newspaper, the prize foundation announced Thursday.

(With inputs from AP.)