Al-Assad Challenges Obama to Provide Evidence on Chemical Weapons Use, Vows Retaliation to Strike

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad denied that his regime was behind the alleged chemical attack last month.

In an interview with CBS television, al-Assad urged the US lawmakers to reject a planned US military assault.
He further warned that if there was a military strike by the United States, there would be retaliation by those aligned with Syria.

Al-Assad “suggested that there would be, among people that are aligned with him, some kind of retaliation if a strike was made,” CBS veteran correspondent Charlie Rose said, speaking after earlier interviewing Assad in Syria.

However, al-Assad “would not even talk about the nature of the response”.
Rose said: “He had a message to the American people that it had not been a good experience for them to get involved in the Middle East in wars and conflicts … that the results had not been good.”

“He denied that he had anything to do with the [chemical] attack,” Rose added. “He denied that he knew there was a chemical attack, notwithstanding what has been said and notwithstanding the videotape. He said there’s not enough evidence to make a conclusive judgment.”
“The most important thing, as he says, is that ‘there’s no evidence that I used chemical weapons against my own people’,” Rose said.

The interview is to be aired on CBS on Monday.

In parallel, the Syrian President challenged the US administration of President Barack Obama to provide the evidence.
“He said that he did not necessarily know whether there was going to be a military strike. He said that they were obviously as prepared as they could be for a strike,” Rose added, citing his interview with al-Assad.

The Syrian leader also “had a message to the American people that it had not been a good experience for them to get involved in the Middle East in wars and conflicts,” Rose said.

“The results had not been good and they should not get involved and that they should communicate to their Congress and to their leadership in Washington not to authorize a strike.”