Al-Assad: Europe to 'pay the price' for arming Syria rebels

Europe will "pay the price" if it sends arms to Syrian rebel forces, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad warned on Monday in an interview with a German newspaper. "If the Europeans deliver weapons, then Europe's backyard will become terrorist and Europe will pay the price for that," the Syrian president said in the interview with Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper. The United States decided last week that Washington would ramp up its involvement in Syria' s conflict, following a U.S. investigation accusing the use of chemical weapons by Syrian government forces. In his first comments since the U.S. announcement, al-Assad warned that arming the rebels would lead to terrorism in Europe, denying claims that Syrian forces had used chemical weapons in the conflict. Up to now, at least 93,000 people have been killed in the conflict that began in March 2011 between the government and forces seeking to oust President al-Assad. The ongoing G8 summit in Northern Ireland is expected to focus on Syria.