France: Iranian interference in Syria 'unacceptable'

French President Francois Hollande declared on Tuesday that Iran's material support of Bashar al-Assad's regime amounted to an unacceptable interference in Syria's bloody civil war. "It is clear that we have all the proof we need that Iran is intervening by human and material means in Syria, and this is unacceptable," Hollande told reporters at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The United States has accused Iran of flying weapons and other supplies to Syria, where its ally Assad is fighting a brutal battle to suppress a popular revolt, traversing Iraqi airspace to fuel the conflict. Iran and Iraq have denied the charge, although General Mohammed Ali Jafari of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps declared on September 16 that Iranian guards were on the ground as "advisors" -- a claim later denied by Tehran. Syrian rebels often report spotting and sometimes capturing Iranian agents on the battlefield, while for his part Assad alleges that foreign extremist fighters are infiltrating Syria to support the rebellion.