Assad: There are 'definitely' terrorists among Syrian refugees

Posted: Feb 10, 2017

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad claims in a new interview that there are "definitely" terrorists among the Syrian refugees displaced by his country's civil war. “You can find it on the net. The same picture that you saw them, in some cases ... those terrorists in Syria, holding the machine gun or killing people, they are peaceful refugees in Europe or in the West," Assad said during an interview with Yahoo News published on Thursday. When asked about how many terrorists could also be posing as refugees, Assad maintained that no one knows the exact statistics. "Nobody knows, because nobody knows any terrorists to give a percentage," he told the publication. The Syrian president also underscored that “you don’t need a significant number to commit atrocities.” Assad pointed to the 9/11 attacks, stating that they were committed by fewer than 20 terrorists out of "millions of immigrants in the United States." "So it’s not about the number, it’s about the quality, it’s about the intentions,” he argued. Assad also commented on the President Trump's position on drastically limiting the inflow of refugees into the U.S. "I am not American to justify it, only as American people would say this is against the interests of the United States or [in their] interest," he said. "I can only speak as president, for me the priority is to bring those citizens to their country, not to help them immigrate." Trump says his executive order halting the flow of Syrian refugees is necessary because of the possibility of terrorists among their ranks, though critics have pointed out that Syrians haven't been behind any successful strikes against the U.S. in recent years.;