UPDATE 1025 GMT: Syria’s rescue workers respond crisply to President Assad’s declaration, “We have no barrel bombs.”

Further challenges to Assad, as the regime killed more than 100 people in the Damascus suburb of Douma in its latest attacks, are being posted with the hashtag #noBarrelBombs.


UPDATE 0640 GMT: Despite Jeremy Bowen’s challenging questions, the Assad regime is already reaping the benefits of the “exclusive” interview, with the BBC declaring his victory in the four-year Syrian conflict.

Speaking on the BBC’s flagship radio program Today, Jeremy Bowen continued to speak about Assad’s denial of the barrel bombs killing civilians. However, the headline comment was his declaration: “Assad is one of the Middle East’s great survivors….This interview shows the regime is feeling more secure.”

Bowen also featured Assad’s portrayal of himself as just a normal human being dealing with normal worries. The correspondent noted his probing question, “What keeps you awake at night?”, with the President’s reply: “Many reasons that could affect any human. Life. Could be personal, could be work.”


UPDATE 0635 GMT: We have now posted the full video of the 25-minute video.

Jeremy Bowen’s questioning is far tougher than the BBC’s headline summary — or Bowen’s comments on radio this morning — suggest. The take-away points from the interview are a series of Assad denials.

See Syria Video and Extract: Full Assad Interview with the BBC — A Series of Denials


Throughout Monday, the BBC was proclaiming today’s “exclusive” interview with Syria’s President Assad — following his “exclusive” interviews in recent weeks with a Czech newspaper and with the US magazine Foreign Affairs — but it was the President’s office who gave us the first glimpse of the latest PR campaign with this 35-second video:

Now the BBC is broadcasting snippets of the exchange with reporter Jeremy Bowen and putting up extracts on its website:

[Assad] denied that Syrian government forces had been dropping barrel bombs indiscriminately on rebel-held areas, killing thousands of civilians.

Mr Assad dismissed the allegation as a “childish story”: “We have bombs, missiles and bullets… There is [are] no barrel bombs, we don’t have barrels.”

The BBC notes, “Our correspondent says that his denial is highly controversial as the deaths of civilians in barrel bomb attacks are well-documented.”

Jeremy Bowen also pushes back in a short commentary:

Mr Assad’s many enemies will dismiss his view of the war.

For them, he has been in charge of a killing machine that has been chewing Syrians up and spitting them out.

As the war enters its fifth year, the barrel bomb has become the most notorious weapon in the regime’s arsenal.

Two or three years ago, I saw the results of what must have been one in Douma, a suburb of Damascus that has been held by rebels since close to the beginning of the war.

Mr Assad insisted that the Syrian army would never use them in a place where people lived.

“I know about the army. They use bullets, missiles and bombs. I haven’t heard of the army using barrels, or maybe, cooking pots.”

It was a flippant response; the mention of cooking pots was either callousness, an awkward attempt at humour, or a sign that Mr Assad has become so disconnected from what is happening that he feels overwhelmed.

Surprisingly, however, the BBC does not headline Assad’s bold denial of cooking-pot warfare. Instead, it prefers “Assad says Syria is ‘Informed on Anti-IS Air Campaign'”:

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad says his government is receiving messages from the US-led coalition battling the jihadist group, Islamic State.

Mr Assad told the BBC that there had been no direct co-operation since air strikes began in Syria in September.

But third parties – among them Iraq – were conveying “information”.