DAMASCUS — Extremists cannot be defeated by countries that have “spread terrorism,” Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad said Tuesday in an apparent jab at members of the U.S.-led coalition against the “Islamic State.”

Speaking during a meeting with a senior Iranian official in Damascus, the Syrian leader took aim at countries he said backed “terrorists,” a term his regime uses for all rebels seeking his ouster.

“Fighting terrorism can never be done by those countries that helped create terrorist groups, giving them logistical and financial help and spreading terrorism around the world,” state news agency SANA quoted Assad as saying.

He made the remarks during a meeting with Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, who arrived in Syria earlier Tuesday.

SANA said Assad and Shamkhani warned that the United States was approaching the issue of defeating extremists with “covert agendas that do not serve the people of the region.”

Syria has had a largely muted reaction to the start of U.S.-led strikes on its territory, despite earlier insisting any such action should be coordinated with its government.