DAMASCUS, Syria -- It had been a rocky journey. With the flow of refugees pouring out of Syria, crossing the Lebanese border was difficult, even though the president's staff were waiting for us on the other side to take us to meet Bashar al-Assad.
Once in Damascus, we could feel the tension but also the fatigue brought on by years of civil war. Though markets were open and people went about their business, the Syrians appeared tired but resigned to their fates.
Assad's image was everywhere: a wartime president, exuding authority. And during our stay in the capital, we could hear the occasional roar of a howitzer but we couldn't discern the sound of incoming fire, though some neighborhoods had clearly been damaged.
Arriving at the Damarose Hotel in Damascus, I was immediately escorted to a different location to discuss the conditions of the interview with the president's communication team.
None of their requests were unusual for a head of state. They told me I would have an hour with Assad and that I could ask what I wanted.
In contrast to the official military-style portraits of him plastered around Damascus, he appeared more like the optometrist he once was while living in the UK years ago. His gestures, though, were expressive and his hands long and white.
He also often used the collective pronoun. When referring to his children, for instance, he would talk about the children of Syria in general as a way to associate himself with the people of Syria and, ultimately, their collective fate.
Some may argue that, in talking to him, we offered him a platform to expound his views and portray himself as the last bastion against the Islamic State. But as a journalist, I believe it was my duty to go to Damascus to ask him the questions in person. The reader can judge for him or herself.
Here are some of the questions:
Paris Match: Your army is blamed for its excessive use of force during this war. Why are civilians shelled?
Bashar al-Assad: When a terrorist attacks you with weapons, how do you defend yourself and your people, with dialogue?! The army uses weapons when the other side uses them. For us in Syria, it is impossible to have our objective as shelling civilians. There’s no reason to shell civilians. If we are killing civilians, in other words killing our people, fighting terrorists at the same time, and fighting the states which stand against us and which support terrorists, like the Gulf countries, Turkey, and the West, how could we stand for four years? If we haven’t been defending the people, we wouldn’t have been able to stand all this pressure. Consequently, saying that we are shelling civilians doesn’t make any sense.
Paris Match: Satellite imagery of the cities of Homs and Hama show completely destroyed neighborhoods; and the United Nations, of which your country is a member, talks about 190,000 people having been killed in this war. Were all the people in those neighborhoods terrorists?
Bashar al-Assad: First of all, you need to verify the figures provided by the United Nations. What are the sources of these figures? The figures being circulated in the world, particularly in the media, are exaggerated and inaccurate. Second, images of destruction are not only obtained through satellite images, they are there actually on the ground, and they are accurate. When terrorists enter a certain region and occupy it, the army has to liberate it, and there is a battle. So, naturally, there is destruction. But in most cases, when terrorists enter a certain area, civilians flee from it. In fact, the largest number of victims in Syria is among the supporters of the state, not the other way round; and a large number of those were killed in terrorist attacks. Of course, when you have war and terrorism innocent people die. This happens everywhere in the world. But it is impossible for a state to target civilians.
Paris Match: According to the United Nations too, there are three million Syrian refugees in neighboring countries, what amounts to one eighth of Syria’s population. Are all those allied with terrorists?
Bashar al-Assad: No, no. Those who left Syria are generally people who left because of terrorism. There are those who support terrorism, and there are those who support the state but left because of the security situation. There is also a significant number of those who do not support any side.
Read the full interview with Assad in Paris Match here.
Regis Le Sommier is the associate editor in chief of Paris Match. Before that, he held the position of New York bureau chief for the magazine. He has covered wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a number of other global conflicts. He is the author of a biography of General David Petraeus, among other books.