Trump admits he wants to kill Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

WASHINGTON DC, KOMPAS.com – President of the United States Donald Trump revealed, he once intended kill President Syria Bashar al-Assad in 2017.

However in his interview with Fox & Friends, the president of the Republican Party said his intention was prevented by the then defense minister, Jim Mattis.

In his interview, Trump explained that he already had preparations to assassinate Bashar al- Assad, and just execute it.

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“Mattis didn’t want to do it. He was a general who had exaggerated his performance. So I kicked him out,” he said.

The revelations reinforce a report by veteran US journalist Bob Woodward in his 2018 book “Fear: Trump in the White House”.

At the time, the 74-year-old president wanted to get rid of Assad after he launched chemical attacks on civilians in April 2017.

“Let’s kill him! Let’s go in, and kill all the bastards,” said the president to Mattis as written Woodward.

However, as reported The Guardian at that time, his aides knew that this move would only have a negative impact in the future.

So Mattis told her he “will do it.” However, instead he only proposed small-scale air strikes that would not endanger Assad.

Also read: US Sanctions Wife of Syrian President Bashar Assad

As soon as the book was published, the 45th president of the US immediately denied it. “It was unthinkable,” he explained on September 5, 2018.

Reported AFP Tuesday (9/15/2020), he continued not to regret the decision in which he did not execute murder Assad.

The real estate tycoon said that so far he only saw Bashar al-Assad as a bad person, so he had the ambition to kill him.

“But Mattis is against it. Mattis is almost always against whatever I have planned about it (Assad),” Trump explained.

Assad has been in power in Syria since July 2000, where in 2011, his country experienced a civil war that continues to this day.

So far, his government has been accused of committing crimes such as torture, extrajudicial executions, rape, and the use of chemical weapons.

Also read: US Urges Assad Regime and Allies to Stop Cruelty in Idlib

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