Assad: ISIS has grown since start of air strikes

WASHINGTON DC - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in a US television interview that coalition air strikes have done nothing to slow the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria and Iraq.

In an interview aired Sunday by CBS television’s 60 Minutes news program, Assad said that by some estimates ISIS was attracting 1,000 recruits a month in Syria alone.

"Actually ISIS has expanded since the beginning of the strikes," Assad said. There are “some estimates that they have 1,000 recruits every month in Syria,” he added. “And Iraq -- they are expanding in Libya and many other al Qaeda affiliate organizations have announced their allegiance to ISIS. So that's the situation.”

Assad has clung to power despite a civil war -- now in its fifth year – that has killed more than 210,000 people and created close to 9 million refugees.  US air strikes against ISIS in Syria began last September.

Asked under what circumstances he would be willing to relinquish power, Assad said:  "When I don't have the public support; when I don't represent the Syrian interests and values."

Lashing out at Saudi Arabia and Turkey, he said Riyadh shared “the same ideology, the same background” as ISIS, and called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “a Muslim Brotherhood fanatic.”

“He's somebody who's suffering from political megalomania,” he said about Erdogan. “He thinks that he is becoming the sultan of the new era of the 21st century.”