Syria denies war games with Russia, China, Iran

An adviser to Syrian President Bashar Assad has denied an Iranian media report that Syria would host Russian, Chinese and Iranian military forces for joint exercises, the Russian news agency Interfax reported on Tuesday. An Iranian news agency, Fars, reported that 90,000 troops and hundreds of ships, tanks and warplanes from the four countries would take part in the war games on land and sea in Syria soon. "There will be nothing like that. This is one of those (pieces of) false information that are distributed about (Syria)," Interfax quoted Bouthaina Shabaan, an adviser to Assad who was in Moscow on Tuesday, as saying. Interfax said she was referring to a report on al-Arabiya television that was similar to the Fars article.