In addition to spilling over regionally into Turkey and Lebanon, the civil war in Syria is increasingly becoming an explicit proxy war between US-aligned Saudi Arabia and Turkey, on one side, and Iran-aligned Hezbollah and Syria, on the other. A senior Russian general is charging that the Syrian opposition has “foreign portable anti-aircraft missile systems, including those made in the USA” and is demanding that the origin of those weapons “be cleared up.” Since the outbreak of hostilities Russia has largely backed the Assad regime.

[Photo: Christiaan Triebert / Flickr]