Assad disappointed at social media reaction to speech

DAMASCUS: Just hours after making his first public appearance since November, Syrian president Bashar Assad was said to be “disappointed” at the response from various social media platforms to his defiant speech. “[Assad] really thought he’d nailed it this time,” claimed a source close to the president, adding that “he’d had been practicing in front of the mirror for days” and had a team of speechwriters working through the night on some of the lines. Apparently, he “particular liked” the bits about Western puppets and al-Qaeda. “But he’s been glued to Facebook and Twitter since he finished and was rather disappointed to see that that it hadn’t yet generated the positive reaction he’d been hoping for.”