When you use an armament, you use it to defend the civilians. You kill terrorists in order to defend civilians. That's the natural role of any army in the world.
Syria is in a state of war since its land was occupied for more than four decades, and the nature of the frontier in Syria implies that most of the army is in inhabited areas, most of the centers are in inhabited areas.
The army is made of the people ; it cannot be made of robots.
Every country has criminals who have to be fought. They can exist anywhere, including the government or the army - or outside the government and army.
The army is making good advancement on daily basis against the terrorists. Of course, they still have the support of Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and some Western countries including the United States, but the only option that we have in that regard is to win.
From the first day I took the decision as President to defend my country. So, who killed ? That's another question. Actually, the terrorists have been killing our people since the beginning of this crisis two years and a half ago, and the Syrian people wanted the government and the state institutions and the army and the police to defend them, and that's what happened.
Let's presume that a country or army has this weapon ; this kind of armaments cannot be used by infantry for example or by anyone. This kind of armament should be used by specialized units, so it cannot be in the hand of anyone.
Even if you want to take the American story, they say we used chemical weapons the same day the team or the investigation team came to Syria ; is it logical ? It's not logical. Even if a country or army wanted to use such weapon, they should have waited a few days till the investigation finished its work. It's not logical, the whole story doesn't even hold together.
We never said that the majority [of the terrorists] are not Syrians, but we said that the minority is what they call "free Syrian army." That's what we said.
You cannot be desperate when the army is making advances. That should have happened - if we take into consideration that this presumption is correct and this is reality - you use it when you're in a desperate situation.
The most important part of [Russian] support is the aerial support, which is very essential, they have very strong firepower, and at the same time they are the main supply of our army for more than sixty years, so our army depends on the Russian support in different military domains.
Let's be realistic, every terrorist came to Syria, he came through Turkey with the support of [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan. So, fighting those terrorists is like fighting the army of Erdogan, not the Turkish army, the army of Erdogan.
If the American administration want to support Al-Qaeda - go ahead. That's what we have to tell them, go ahead and support Al-Qaeda, but don't talk about rebels and free Syrian army.
What the army is doing is cleaning those areas, and the indication that the army is strong is that it's making advancement in that area. It never went to one area and couldn't enter to it - that's an indication. How could that army do that if it's a family army or a sect army ? What about the rest of the country who support the government ? It's not realistic, it doesn't happen. Otherwise, the whole country will collapse.
Talking about winning and losing is like if you're talking about two armies fighting on two territories, which is not the case. Those [terrorists] are gangs, coming from abroad, infiltrate inhabited areas, kill the people, take their houses, and shoot at the army. The army cannot do the same, and the army doesn't exist everywhere.
We wouldn't have withstood for two years and a half. We would have disintegration of the army, disintegration of the whole institution in the state ; we would have disintegration of Syria if that was the case. It can't be tolerated in Syria. I'm talking about the normal reaction of the people. If it's not a national army, it cannot have the support, and if it doesn't have the public support of every sect, it cannot do its job and advance recently. It cannot. The army of the family doesn't make national war.
Armies are not only for offensives.
