In an interview with Portugal’s RTP state television, Syrian’s President Bashar al-Assad has said that Donald Trump will be a “natural ally” of Syria if he fulfils his promises to “fight the terrorists” .
Speaking of the six-year conflict that has raged in Syria, Assad hoped for Trump’s support in fighting the Jihadists.
“We cannot tell anything about what he’s going to do, but if… he is going to fight the terrorists, of course, we are going to be ally, natural ally in that regard with the Russian, with the Iranian, with many other countries,” said Assad.
Trump has recently reaffirmed his status regarding the Syrian conflict, reiterating that fighting ISIS should be the world’s number one priority.
“I’ve had an opposite view of many people regarding Syria. My attitude was you’re fighting Syria, Syria is fighting Isis, and you have to get rid of Isis,” he said to the Wall Street Journal on Friday.
Not all Republicans are on board with Trump’s views. On Monday, John McCain said that the US’s involvement in Syria would be with the cost of the “butchery of the Syrian people”.
Trump has advocated changes to the current US-led coalition’s strategy in dealing with Isis. He famously said during his campaign last year that he would “bomb the s*** out of them.”
“Isis is making a tremendous amount of money because they have certain oil camps, certain areas of oil that they took away,” he said, a statement that has since been found to be incorrect.
“I would just bomb those suckers. That’s right. I’d blow up the pipes… I’d blow up every single inch. There would be nothing left. And you know what, you’ll get Exxon to come in there and in two months, you ever see these guys, how good they are, the great oil companies? They’ll rebuild that sucker, brand new – it’ll be beautiful.”
More than 300,000 people have died since the Syrian civil conflict began in March 2011.