In this Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012 photo, Syrian rebel fighters flash the victory sign while moving past a building destroyed partly in a government shelling in Aleppo, Syria. Arabic reads on the vehicle, "Free army". Rebels have taken a major stride in uniting their ranks in the battle for Syria’s largest city, giving them hope they could tip the balance in three-months of bloody stalemate in Aleppo, one of the biggest prizes of the civil war. The question is how much more destruction the city can bear. Regime troops are retaliating with heavier bombardment, and civilians are bearing the brunt, their neighborhoods left in rubble. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
Syria's Assad says rebels will be defeated
In this Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012 photo, Syrian rebel fighters flash the victory sign while moving past a building destroyed partly in a government shelling in Aleppo, Syria. Arabic reads on the vehicle, "Free army". Rebels have taken a major stride in uniting their ranks in the battle for Syria’s largest city, giving them hope they could tip the balance in three-months of bloody stalemate in Aleppo, one of the biggest prizes of the civil war. The question is how much more destruction the city can bear. Regime troops are retaliating with heavier bombardment, and civilians are bearing the brunt, their neighborhoods left in rubble. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
AP /
September 21, 2012
Text Size:
- –
- +
BEIRUT (AP) — Syria’s President Bashar Assad is adamant his regime will not fall and predicts the defeat of the armed opposition that has been fighting his troops.
Assad says the rebels ‘‘will not succeed’’ and that a foreign military intervention such as the one that helped topple Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi will ‘‘not be repeated’’ in Syria.
The comments were published Friday in Egypt’s Al-Ahram Al-Arabi weekly.
The interview with Assad came a day after regime airstrikes hit a gas station in northern Syria, setting off a fiery explosion that killed at least 30 people and wounded dozens.
Syria’s 18-month crisis has morphed into a bloody civil war and the violence has claimed the lives of more than 23,000 people, according to activists.
© Copyright 2013 Globe Newspaper Company.
