British air strikes on Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) will fail to defeat the militant group, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview with the Sunday Times newspaper, mocking Prime Minister David Cameron's strategy in the region.
British lawmakers approved the bombing of ISIS targets in Syria on Thursday.
Hours after that approval, the Royal Air Force struck the oilfields that Cameron's government says are being used to fund attacks on the West.
Speaking in an interview conducted before the vote in parliament, the result of which had been widely anticipated, Assad said Cameron's strategy would make the situation worse, not better.
"They are going to fail again," he said.
"You cannot cut out part of the cancer.
You have to extract it.
This kind of operation is like cutting out part of the cancer.
That will make it spread in the body faster."