Asmaa al-Assad
First Lady Asmaa al-Assad with a group of Syrian Female Soldiers, Syrian Army
Many anti-war activists, even those who are against bombing Syria, have described President Assad's rule as a "dictatorship" and his government as a "regime".

Many are simply aping the mainstream media. The truth is that the president is well-liked by his people.

During the Syrian Presidential election in 2014, Assad won 88.7 percent of the votes with a turnout of 73.42 percent.

"This is a significant amount of voter turnout considering the last time the US had a higher percentage per capita was in 1896. This would suggest that as the war has progressed and the jihadist element became more evident, the people recognised Assad as a source of stability and peace," Middle Eastern analyst Paul Antonopoulos believes.

"Despite mainstream media efforts to demonise Assad, he has the support of most Syrians. Questions about electoral fraud has arisen, says Antonopoulos, "but this overlooks that the elections were overseen by observers from over 30 countries including from post-colonial states like Brazil, India and Uganda".

The observers said in a joint statement that "the Syrian people participated in the elections in total freedom, contrary to Western and regional propaganda that tried to fabricate a false narrative".

A YouGov Siraj poll on Syria commissioned by The Doha Debates and funded by the Qatar Foundation in January 2012, found that at least 55 percent of Syrians supported Assad.

"It must be noted that this poll was funded and commissioned by Qatar who has been one of the key anti-Assad players, and even their poll, which could be susceptible to bias, found that the majority of Syrians supported Assad.

"It must also be highlighted that the poll has since been deleted from the The Doha Debates but the results of the poll are still cited by The Guardian in an opinion piece by Guardian columnist and author Jonathan Steele. These facts cannot be ignored," said the analyst.

"Also the US as a Christian nation, why do people not listen to Syria's Christians, one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, at all? They overwhelmingly support the government." Meanwhile German tabloid Bild used the testimony of a fake eye witness of the alleged chemical attack, Deana Lynn. But in her own words on US NPR she admitted that she had not been near the site at all: "The second day, there was a chemical attack which was not near me, but I heard about it. And when I heard about it from some of the young men - they told me what happened."

Diana Jamal el-Deen aka Deana Lynn told NPR she sat in a basement far away from the location and heard about it from some "young men". She was evacuated to northern Syria after the SAA liberated Douma. Idlib, where she now lives, is a stronghold of ISIS in northern Syria, so it appears that she had been told this fake news by ISIS militants.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has called for ending the demonization of Russia and its people on Sunday. He said that Germany should do more to help de-escalate tensions, because of Germany's unique history with Russia.

Steinmeier warned that the US-led airstrikes only raised the risk of direct confrontation between US and Russia.

Syrian Vice President of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Syrian Parliament, Ammar Assad said on Sunday that the missile attack launched by the United States, the United Kingdom and France had been paid for by the Crown Prince Saudi Mohammed bin Salman.

"US President Donald Trump has already announced on many occasions that Saudi Arabia should fund the coalition's military operations. The US side has asked for four billion dollars. It is Saudi Arabia that finances all aggressive operations led by the US-led coalition in Syria, Iraq and Libya. Mohammed bin Salman went to France and the United States and paid all the expenses of a military aggression against Syria. The pleasure that Saudi Arabia has taken in this attack supports this assertion," said Ammar Assad."