Assad ally Hezbollah plays down 'total war' risk over Syria

Lebanon's Hezbollah movement played down on Friday the risk that the Syrian crisis would spiral into a U.S.-Russian military conflict, but its leader raised the possibility of a "direct fight" between Iran and Israel.The heavily armed and Tehran-backed Shi'ite movement has been a vital military ally of President Bashar al-Assad in the seven-year-old Syrian war."We rule out the situation developing into a direct American-Russian clash or a wide state of war," said deputy Hezbollah leader Sheikh N