DHAKA: US president Barack Obama on Sunday rejected any alliance with Bashar al-Assad against the Islamic State (IS) group, arguing that the Syrian president was illegitimate and that any such pact would backfire.

‘Assad has ruthlessly murdered hundreds of thousands of his citizens. As a consequence, he has completely lost legitimacy with the majority of the country,’ Obama told reporters after a G-20 summit in Brisbane, reports The Straits Times.

‘For us to then make common cause with him against ISIL would only turn more Sunnis in Syria in the direction of supporting ISIL and would weaken our coalition’ against the group, he said, referring to IS by its other name, the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL).

US reports this week said the president had ordered a wholesale review of his administration’s Syria policy, with Assad still in power despite an armed uprising that is now in its fourth year.

BDST: 1620 HRS, NOV 16, 2014