Assad warns of 'regional war' if West takes military action

Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad warned Monday that Western military strikes risked igniting a "regional war" in the "powder keg" of the Middle East, in an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro. He also said France would face "repercussions" if it took part in US-led plans for military action in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack by Assad's regime last month. "The Middle East is a powder keg, and the fuse is getting shorter," Assad told the newspaper's correspondent in Damascus, in a rare interview with Western media. "We cannot only talk about a Syrian response, but what could happen after the first strike. Nobody knows what will happen," Assad said. "Everyone will lose control of the situation once the powder keg explodes. Chaos and extremism will spread. There is a risk of regional war." Assad also said France, which is prepared to back Washington in threatened military strikes in response to the alleged August 21 chemical attack, should consider the consequences of such action. "Whoever works against the interests of Syria and its citizens is an enemy. The French people are not our enemy, but the policy of their state is hostile to the Syrian people," he said. "Insofar as the policy of the French state is hostile to the Syrian people, the state will be its enemy... There will be repercussions, negative ones of course, on the interests of France." He said French policy on Syria now "depends totally on Qatar and the United States" who have overtly backed the opposition. Assad said that at the start of the crisis, now into its third year, a solution could have been found through dialogue or political measures but the situation today was "different." "We are fighting terrorists. Eighty to 90 percent of those we are fighting belong to Al-Qaeda. Those people are neither interested in reforms, nor in politics," he said, adding that the sole option was to "liquidate" them. Assad said the only way to a solution would be to prevent "terrorists" backed by money and arms from entering Syria and dismissed the opposition as foreign stooges. "The opposition has no popular base in Syria. It is made in France, made in Qatar but certainly not made in Syria," he said. "It follows the orders of those who made it." The Syrian leader specifically named Britain, the United States, France, Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia as those who had provided huge financial and military backing to the opposition. Assad said France, which had notably opposed the Anglo-American offensive on Saddam Hussein's Iraq in 2003, leading to its widespread vilification in the United States, had "decided to renounce its independence and become a subaltern actor in American politics." "The question is whether the French will find their independence when they take their decision," he said, slamming the "double standards" promoted by the United States. The French parliament is due to hold an emergency session on Syria on Wednesday but there will be no vote. "Today the stability of the region depends on the situation in Syria," Assad warned, dismissing responsibility for the alleged chemical attack which Washington says killed more than 1,400 people. "Whoever makes accusations must furnish proof," he said. "We have challenged the United States and France to advance the slightest proof. If the Americans, the French or the British had one single proof they should have shown it from day one." He questioned the "logic" of claims that his forces carried out the attack. "Supposing our army wishes to use weapons of mass destruction. Is it possible that it would do so in a zone where it is located and where (our) soldiers were wounded by these arms, as United Nations inspectors have noted during visits to hospitals where they were treated?" Assad said.