Clinton Accuses Russia of Delivering Attack Helicopters to Syrian Regime
The US has accused Russia of risking a dramatic escalation of the conflict in Syria by shipping attack helicopters to the regime in Damascus.
Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, went on to allege that Moscow is lying about weapons deliveries to Syria by falsely claiming they are not being used to suppress the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.
“We have confronted the Russians about stopping their continued arms shipments to Syria,” said Clinton. “They have, from time to time, said that we shouldn’t worry, [that] everything they’re shipping is unrelated to [Syria’s] actions internally. That’s patently untrue, and we are concerned about the latest information we have that there are attack helicopters on the way from Russia to Syria which will escalate the conflict quite dramatically.”
A Pentagon spokesman, Captain John Kirby, said he could not confirm Clinton’s assertion but added that the Syrian regime is already using attack helicopters against the opposition. However the state department said that its information is about new deliveries on their way to Syria.
Moscow has been a longstanding supplier of weapons to the Assad regime and Syria hosts Russia’s only naval base in the Mediterranean.