February 19
17:50
2016
Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said Syrian moderate rebels should be armed with surface-to-air missiles against the Russian-backed Assad regime, a German news weekly reported Friday. Anti-aircraft weapons could tip the scales on the battlefield as they did in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s, Adel al-Jubeir is quoted as saying in an interview with Der Spiegel. "We believe that introducing surface-to-air missiles in Syria is going to change the balance of power on the ground," he said, stressing this would have to be decided by a coalition of partner states.
