We are facing an external attack against us, which is more dangerous than any other previous wars... We are dealing with those who are extremists, who only know the language of killing and criminality.

The part in Aleppo, what [people] call it the eastern part, is occupied by the terrorists for the last three years, and they have been using the civilians as human shields.

According to what we've been seeing recently in the area where the terrorists control, where they ban people from going to schools, ban young men from shaving their beards, and women have to be covered from head to toe, and let's say in brief they live the Taliban style in Afghanistan, completely the same style.

We've been dealing with this kind of terrorism since the fifties, since the Muslim Brotherhood came to Syria at that time.

That's all before the crisis. We always have this kind of cooperation with Iran [Supplies, weaponry].

You cannot have democracy without the institutions. You cannot have a democracy that is built on the moods of self-interested people.

It started partly as a sectarian war in some areas, but now it's not, because when you talk about sectarian war or religious war, you should have a very clear line between the sects and religions in Syria according to the geography and the demography in Syria, something we don't have.