Bashar Al-Assad

In an interview with Walters, Assad denies he is responsible for the violence engulfing his country and distances himself from the behavior of his armed forces.

They are not my forces. They are forces for the government. I don’t own them. I’m president. I don’t own the country. So they are not my forces…Every brute reaction was by an individual, not by an institution, that’s what you have to know, There is a difference between having a policy to crack down and between having some mistakes committed by some officials. There is a big difference. We don’t kill, It’s impossible for anyone in this state to give orders to kill. No government in the world kills its people, unless it’s led by a crazy person,