Iran Shipping More Weapons to Assad

Iran has drastically increased its arms shipments to Syria in recent months, sending weapons to Bashar al-Assad's regime, and to its Hezbollah supporters, in what is increasingly becoming a Shiite-vs-Sunni conflict, Western diplomats tell Reuters. The weapons are flowing primarily through Iraq—despite Iraqi protestations to the contrary—but some are also reportedly taking routes through Turkey and Lebanon. "The Iranians really are supporting massively the regime," one senior diplomat said. "And the Iraqis really are looking the other way."

Meanwhile, the rebels could be about to get an arms infusion of their own. France and the UK intend to ask the EU to lift its arms embargo on Syria, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told a radio station today, according to the Wall Street Journal. "We can't accept that there is such an imbalance with on one side Iran and Russia supplying weapons to Bashar, and on the other side the (rebels) who can't defend themselves," he said. David Cameron has said the UK may simply ignore the embargo. (More Bashar al-Assad stories.)