​​​​​​​TRUMP: I planned to kill Al-Assad, but the then defense secretary refused

Trump said, "I would have preferred to kill him and set it all up. But Mattis didn't want to do that," according to Trump's comments on "Fox and Friends," in which he attacked Mattis.

Trump was asked about a story in veteran Bob Woodward's 2018 book, "Fear," which states that Trump called Mattis and told him he wanted to kill Al-Assad. "Let's kill him! Let's get involved in the case, let's kill a lot of them," Trump said, according to Woodward.

According to Woodward, Mattis told Trump he would be involved, but then told an aide, "We'll be more precise." Ultimately, his team devised a plan for an airstrike on targets ordered by Trump.

Trump confirmed on Tuesday that Mattis was a "bad general," but said he had not regretted not toppling Al-Assad.

He added, "I don't regret it. I could live either way though. You know I considered him definitely not a good person, but I had a chance to kill him if I wanted to, and Mattis was against that, Mattis was against most of those things."

In Tuesday's interview, Trump mentioned that the US attacks, which began after Mattis' resignation in 2018, led to the ouster of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019 and Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in 2020.

The American President commented: "Soleimani and Al-Baghdadi are among the biggest terrorists. Al-Baghdadi founded ISIS and was trying to build it again after I killed it."

  (A)

ANHA