Washington, Oct 9 (EFE).– U.S. President Barack Obama suggested that Russian airstrikes in Syria are a sign of the growing weakness of Russian leader Vladimir Putin in an interview on CBS News, of which an excerpt was released Friday.

Obama questioned whether Putin is defying U.S. leadership in the Middle East with his air attacks on Syria, which he described as an attempt to support at all costs a tottering Bashar al-Assad regime after four years of civil war.

“When I came into office…Syria was Russia’s only ally in the region,” Obama said in the interview, the complete version of which will air this Sunday.

“And today, rather than being able to count on their support and maintain the base they had in Syria, which they’ve had for a long time. Mr. Putin now is devoting – his own troops, his own military, just to barely hold together by a thread his sole ally,” he said.

When the journalist conducting the interview said that Russia is “challenging your leadership, Mr. President,” and is “bombing the people – that we are supporting,” Obama questioned whether that was any indication of leadership at all.

“If you think that running your economy into the ground and having to send troops in, in order to prop up your only ally is leadership, then we’ve got a different definition of leadership,” he said.

The U.S. State Department said that more than 90 percent of the airstrikes launched by Russia in Syria since last week have not targeted the Islamic State (IS) nor groups affiliated with al-Qaeda, but have mostly been aimed at the Syrian opposition to Assad.

Meanwhile, Russia has said over and over again that its attacks are directed solely against terrorist organizations, though it also acknowledged that the IS is not its only target, since there are other jihadist groups operating in the Arab nation. EFE