April 23, 2016
KNOWING YOUR ALLIES:
Rouhani: If not for Iran, IS would rule Baghdad and Damascus (TIMES OF ISRAEL, April 23, 2016)
At a conference on Saturday, Rouhani said that Iran was a "pioneer in fighting against extremism and violence in the world in word and action.""If Iran hadn't help, ISIL would have been materialized practically and today, we would be facing an ISIL terrorist government instead of a terrorist group," he said, according to the semi-official Fars news agency which used another acronym for the Islamic State.Iran came to the aid of Iraq and Syria to stop the rapid advances of the group, in the summer on 2014, and had it done so, Baghdad and Damascus would today be in the hands of the terror group, Rouhani said, according to Iranian media. [...]Speaking to a Lebanese TV station affiliated with Lebanese Hezbollah, Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi also said that Iran had offered Syrian President Bashar Assad and his family asylum in Iran, which Assad had refused.
Posted by Orrin Judd at April 23, 2016 3:29 PM