In addition to threatening to invade Syria and oust Bashar al-Assad Saudi Arabia says it wants to arm jihadists in the country with anti-aircraft missiles to take out Russian jets.

"We believe that introducing surface-to-air missiles in Syria is going to change the balance of power on the ground," Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said during an interview with Der Spiegel.

"It will allow the moderate opposition to be able to neutralize the helicopters and aircraft that are dropping chemicals and have been carpet-bombing them, just like surface-to-air missiles in Afghanistan were able to change the balance of power there. This has to be studied very carefully, however, because you don't want such weapons to fall into the wrong hands," al-Jubeir said.