Down but not yet out

HAVING dramatically entered Syria’s war on September 30th with a slew of air strikes against the forces battling Bashar al-Assad, Russia upped the stakes again a week later. On October 7th it hit the opposition with cruise missiles launched from hundreds of miles away in the Caspian Sea. The missiles and the strikes are said by Russia to be part of a campaign against “terrorism”, but have almost exclusively been directed not against Islamic State (IS) but against opposition groups, including some supported by America, much closer to Mr Assad’s remaining heartland.

Supporting ground attacks by the Assad regime, Russian planes have for the past week repeatedly bashed groups in the north-western rebel-held province of Idlib and pockets around the city of Homs, in some cases making indiscriminate use of cluster bombs.