Russia's shipment of anti-ship missiles to Syria will "embolden" the regime and fuel the country's civil war, the US military's top officer said Friday. General Martin Dempsey's comments were the first official confirmation from the US government that Moscow had sent advanced "ship-killer" cruise missiles to President Bashar al-Assad's regime. "It is at the very least an unfortunate decision that will embolden the regime and prolong the suffering," the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told a news conference when asked about the reported shipment of missiles.

Bombs targeting Sunnis, including two near a mosque and one at a funeral procession, killed 51 people in Iraq on Friday, officials said, after dozens died in two days of attacks on Shiites. The violence raises the spectre of tit-for-tat killings common during the height of sectarian bloodletting in Iraq that killed tens of thousands of people, and comes at a time of simmering tension between the country's Sunni minority and Shiite majority.

France will buy two medium-altitude Reaper drones from the United States air force to back up its operations against Islamists in Mali, the Air et Cosmos specialist magazine reported on Friday. It said on its online edition that an agreement had been reached for the purchase of two non-armed MQ-9 drones from the US air force. It said the French air force, which has deployed the Harfang drone in Mali -- made by the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company -- wanted to acquire more modern drones quickly.