NEWS FLASH

Syrian President Assad Compares Himself To A ‘Doctor’ ‘Saving The Patient’ | Syrian President Bashar Assad is defending the government’s crackdown against opposition forces by comparing his actions to a surgeon saving a patient. “When a surgeon in an operating room … cuts and cleans and amputates, and the wound bleeds, do we say to him your hands are stained with blood?” Assad asked in a speech to parliament on Sunday. “Or do we thank him for saving the patient?” Up to 13,000 people have been killed in the Syrian uprising, but the strongman denied responsibility for last week’s internationally-condemned massacre of more than 100 people, “saying not even ‘monsters’ would carry out such an ugly crime.”