France policy to blame: Bashar al-Assad

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Saturday that French policy had contributed to the “spread of terrorism” that culminated in atta-cks claimed by the ISIS group which killed 128 people in Paris. In a meeting with a delegation of French lawmakers in Damascus, Mr Assad said France’s “mistaken policies... Had contributed to the spread of terrorism.”

“The terrorist attacks that targeted the French capital Paris cannot be separated from what happened in the Lebanese capital Beirut lately and from what has been happening in Syria for the past five years and in other areas,” he said.

Mr Assad was referring to twin bombings claimed by ISIS which k-illed 44 people on Thursday in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a str-onghold of his Lebanese ally, Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

Mr Assad said he had “warned against what would happen in Europe for the past three years.”