ASSAD WARNS US AGAINST ATTACK ON SYRIA

     Damascus, 4 Zul-qaadah 1434/9 September 2013 (MINA) – The Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, has warned the US against striking his country, that an attack by international forces may prompt retaliation from Syria’s allies.

     In an interview with the US broadcaster CBS on Sunday, Assad denied ever using chemical weapons as the Barack Obama administration tries to drum up support for a military strike, Aljazeera quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

     The Syrian president denied that he was behind the chemical weapons attack on the Syrian people and said evidence was not conclusive that there had been such an attack, CBS reported.

    “There has been no evidence that I used chemical weapons against my own people,” CBS on Sunday quoted Assad as saying in an interview conducted by Charlie Rose in Damascus.

    The US Secretary of State, John Kerry, dismissed any claim by the Syrian president that there was no evidence he used chemical weapons against his own people, saying on Sunday “the evidence speaks for itself”.

    Speaking on the CBS Sunday morning show “Face the Nation”, Rose summarised the answers Assad gave in his first interview with an American television network in the last two years.

      Rose said that the Syrian president did not confirm or deny that the regime has chemical weapons.

     The interview is set to be released on Monday on television shows hosted by Rose.

      The US and France are seeking to build an international coalition to launch military strikes against Syria in response to the alleged chemical attack.

     Member countries of the European Union also blame the Syrian government for the attack, but said on Saturday that the world should wait for a report from UN weapons inspectors before any military response.

     In another media report on Sunday, Germany’s Bild am Sonntag paper said Syrian government forces may have used chemical weapons without the personal permission of Assad.

    Syrian brigade and division commanders had been asking the Presidential Palace to allow them to use chemical weapons for the last four-and-a-half months, according to radio messages intercepted by German spies, but permission had always been denied, the paper said.

      Bild said the radio traffic was intercepted by a German naval reconnaissance vessel, the Oker, sailing close to the Syrian coast. (T/P09/E1).

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).