Syria will continue beefing up its air defenses after getting help from Russia, President Bashar Assad said in an interview with the RT news channel.

Axar.az informs citing Sputnik.

"Our air defense is much stronger than before, thanks to the Russian support, and the recent attacks by the Israelis and by the Americans and British and French proved that we are in a better situation," he said. "The only option is to improve our air defense, this is the only thing we can do, and we are doing that."

Assad accused Israel of being in contact with Syrian militants from the start of the seven-year war. He said militants appeared to have acted in the interest of Israel when they picked air defense systems as their primary target.

"The first target of the mercenaries in Syria was the air defense. Before attacking any other military base it was the air defense… This is the other proof that Israel was in direct link with those terrorists in Syria. So, they attacked those bases, and they destroyed a big part of our air defenses," he pointed out.

US Strikes on Syria

Bashar Assad said that he did not exclude another US strike anytime as long as the United States continued to violate international laws.

"Of course, it could, because when the Unites States trampled over the international law, on daily basis sometimes in different areas for different reasons, any country in the world could have such an attack," he said in response to whether an attack was likely.

"As long as you don’t have an international law that could be obeyed by the United States and its puppets in the West, there is no guarantee that it won’t happen," Assad added.
Assad said that Russia’s threat to strike at US launch sites had prevented a broader attack by the United States and its allies than the one Syria came under in April.

"The Russians announced publicly that they are going to destroy the bases that are going to be used to launch missiles," he said. "Our information — we don’t have evidence, we only have information, and those information are credible information — that they were thinking about a comprehensive attack all over Syria, and that’s why the threat pushed the West to make it on a much smaller scale."