This content was published on October 20, 2016 11:38 AM Oct 20, 2016 - 11:38 
 
 Assad has said that taking the city of Aleppo from rebel forces would act as a springboard to 'push terrorists back to Turkey’ (AFP) 
 
 Syria's President Bashar al-Assad told Swiss public television, SRF, that fighting ‘terrorists’ in Aleppo was the only way of ‘protecting civilians’. He denied government forces bombed hospitals indiscriminately and dismissed allegations of the army’s use of chemical weapons. 
 
 “According to the constitution, according to the law, we have to protect people, we have to get rid of those terrorists from Aleppo. This is where we can protect the civilians,” Assad told SRF in the interview broadcast on Wednesday. 
 
 "How can you protect them while they are under the control of terrorists? They've been killed by them, and they've been controlled fully by the terrorists. Is it our role to sit aside and watch, if that's how we can protect the Syrian people? We need to attack the terrorists, that's self-evident." 
 
 
 
 The Syrian military said on Thursday that a unilateral ceasefire backed by Russia had come into force to allow people to leave besieged eastern Aleppo. It’s a move that the rebels have said was part of a psychological campaign to get them to surrender. Intensified Russian and Syrian bombing of besieged rebel-held parts of Aleppo in the last few weeks has hit hospitals, bakeries and water pumping stations, and killed hundreds of civilians. 
 
 
 
 In the 20-minute interview, Assad said the roles in the conflict were clearly divided, with his government and ‘friends of Syria’ Russia, Iran and China defending the country ‘against the terrorists that have been invading Syria as proxies to other countries’. 
 
 
 
 The West, meanwhile, wants to depose the government and ‘get rid of a certain president just to bring puppets to suit their agenda’, he added. 
 
 
 
 Hospitals 
 
 The Syrian president denied bombing hospitals or targeting civilians in Aleppo. 
 
 
 
 “You cannot succeed in your war if you are killing civilians...I’m not asking people to leave Syria, I’m not attacking people; I’m defending the people,” he declared. 
 
 
 
 He rejected criticism of the army’s indiscriminate use of incendiary weapons and munitions like bunker-buster bombs: “The majority of people were killed by mortars shelled by the terrorists on them while they’re at schools, in their hospitals, in the streets, anywhere. It’s not related to the aerial bombardment.” 
 
 
 
 He also dismissed United Nations allegations into his army’s use of chemical weapons. 
 
 
 
 “They haven’t a shred of evidence,” he stated. “They sent one [UN delegation to Syria to investigate] in 2013, and it couldn’t prove at all that the Syrian Army used chemical weapons.” 
 
 
 
 He said the second UN investigation to Aleppo at the beginning of 2013 into allegations that ‘terrorists used chemical weapons against our army’ was opposed by the US as ‘they already knew that this investigation – of course if it’s impartial – is going to prove that those terrorists, their proxies, used chemical armaments against the Syrian Army’. 
 
 
 
 Kurt Pelda, a Swiss expert on the Middle East, calls Assad a "pathological liar who is completely detached from reality". Parts of the Syrian army were attacked with poison gas, he says, but by Syrian government airplanes which accidentally dropped chemical weapons over their own troops. The large attacks on the civilian population came from the regime, according to Pelda. Helicopters dropped bombs containing chlorine gas, which have been extensively investigated by the UN. 
 
 Interview conditions The interview with the Syrian president took place under strict conditions, defined by the government. The talks were filmed by the Syrian government. The Ministry of Information set the duration of the interview in advance (20 minutes). In addition, the conversation had to be broadcast in full length in Switzerland. SRF were allowed to ask questions without having to submit them in advance. 
 
 end of infobox 
 
 Diplomacy 
 
 Assad said he still believed in a diplomatic solution to the conflict, but added that it was impossible to deal with groups like al-Qaeda, al-Nusra and ISIS. 
 
 
 
 “They have their own ideology, repugnant ideology, so you cannot make political solution with this party; you have to fight them, you have to get rid of them,” he said. 
 
 
 
 But it is possible to discuss with “political entities” who are “with or against or in the middle”, or with “every militant who is ready to give in his armament for the sake of the security or stability in Syria”. 
 
 
 
 Diplomatic efforts have been continuing in Switzerland this week. On Thursday, US Secretary of State John Kerry played down expectations of a new Syrian ceasefire deal with Russia after talks in Geneva aimed at agreeing on how to separate al-Qaeda-linked militants from opposition fighters in the besieged city of Aleppo. 
 
 
 
 After two failed ceasefire agreements between the United States and Russia to end the fighting in Aleppo, a new round of talks includes Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which support Syrian opposition groups. Syria's ally Iran was not invited. 
 
 
 
 The Geneva talks follow a meeting between the United States and Arab and European allies on Tuesday that sought to coordinate efforts toward a new ceasefire after Russia – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's more powerful ally – unexpectedly announced it had halted air strikes on rebel-held areas of Aleppo. 
 
 
 
 On Friday, the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council will hold a special session on the worsening situation in Aleppo after a formal request from Britain, which was made on behalf of a core group of 11 Western and Arab countries, including the United States and regional powers backing Syrian rebel forces. 
 
 
 
 In a statement, the UN said the special session was needed "following the most recent deterioration of the human rights situation in Aleppo, and the failure of the Assad regime and its allies to fulfil their international human rights commitments”. 
 
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 This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. ||||| A photo of a young Syrian boy covered in dust and blood in an ambulance that was viewed by millions and became the face of Aleppo's suffering is being called fake by Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, a claim that contradicts numerous witness accounts on the ground in Syria. 
 
 The boy, five-year-old Omran Daqneesh, was pulled from a destroyed building in the besieged part of Aleppo's Qaterji neighborhood after a Syrian or Russian airstrike on Aug. 17, according to locals, including medical sources and the White Helmets, a volunteer civil defense group that rescued the boy. On social media, many users said that they were particularly moved by his photo because he looked dazed and confused and wasn't crying despite the obvious injury to his head. 
 
 A video showing Omran touching his wounded head and wiping away the blood without shedding a tear went viral and has come to symbolize the humanitarian suffering in Aleppo. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton mentioned the boy's story in two of the presidential debates, including last night's. 
 
 Now, the Syrian president has said that the photo of Omran is fake. When confronted with the photo in an interview with Swiss TV SRF1 and asked what he would say to Omran and his family, Assad responded: "We have real pictures of children being harmed, but this one specifically is a forged one.” 
 
 Assad makes the claim about nine minutes into the televised interview. 
 
 Medical sources in Aleppo confirmed to ABC News in August that they treated Omran following the airstrike. 
 
 “Omran was scared and dazed at the same time. He wasn’t crying at all. It seemed like he had been asleep when it happened,” Mohammad, a surgeon in Aleppo who treated him, told ABC News at the time. “He was very lucky. He only had a simple wound in the scalp. We cleaned and stitched the wound and cleaned his face and clothes. There was no brain damage, and he was discharged after two hours,” Mohammad said. 
 
 Mohamed Abu Rajab, a radiologist who treated the 5-year-old, told ABC News that “Omran looked very, very shocked and frightened. In the beginning, he didn’t speak at all. But after his treatment, he started crying and yelling, “father, mother.' His parents were very, very affected and scared for their son and crying. But we comforted them and told them that the wound was superficial. But he wasn’t speaking so it seemed like his condition was very serious. It seemed like he was unconscious and like the wound had affected his brain. But it turned out that he was fine." 
 
 Omran's older brother later died from his injuries from the same attack, according to monitoring groups, activists and doctors in Aleppo. 
 
 The hospital where he was treated has since been completely destroyed by repeated airstrikes and is now out of service, according to medical staff who worked there and the Syrian American Medical Foundation, which supported the hospital.
– Syrian President Bashar al-Assad apparently believes there's such a big shortage of injured children in his country that people have to forge photos of them. In an interview with a Swiss television station this week, the leader was confronted with a haunting photo of 5-year-old Omran Daqneesh, who was injured in an August airstrike in Aleppo. "I think you know this picture. His name is Omran and he is 5 years old," the interviewer said. "Scared, covered in blood, traumatized. Is there anything you would like to say to Omran and his family?" In response, Assad slammed the White Helmet rescuers and claimed: "This is a forged picture and not a real one." Omran's rescue was caught on video, and doctors have confirmed that they treated him. He "was scared and dazed at the same time. He wasn't crying at all. It seemed like he had been asleep when it happened," a surgeon told ABC News. Omran had an easily treated scalp wound, but his 10-year-old brother died of injuries suffered in the same airstrike. In the Swiss interview, Assad said getting rid of "terrorists" in Aleppo was the only way to protect civilians. "I'm not attacking people; I'm defending the people," he said. (Weeks before protests against his rule began in 2011, Assad insisted Syria would remain stable because he was meeting the people's needs.)