Assad says Syria, allies will defeat terrorism, failure would be devastating

BEIRUT - Reuters

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, shows Syrian President Bashar Assad, speaking during an interview with the Iran's Khabar TV, in Damascus, Syria, Sunday, Oct. 4, 2015. AP Photo

President Bashar al-Assad said Syria, Russia, Iran and Iraq were united in battling terrorism and were likely to succeed, but warned that the cost of failure would be devastating for the Middle East. 

The four nations would achieve "practical results", unlike a U.S.-led international coalition whose year-long campaign of air strikes against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants in Syria and Iraq had seen an expansion of violence, Assad was quoted on Oct.4 as telling Iranian television in an interview. 

Syria and its allies must succeed "or we face destruction of the whole region", the Syrian presidency's Twitter feed quoted Assad as saying in the interview.