Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed that, over the previous 24 hours, Russian air strikes had damaged or destroyed 12 targets in Syria belonging to Islamic State (IS) fighters, including a command center and ammunition depots.
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Obama said he spoke to Putin and told him that he is willing to work with them to negotiate a political transition that removes Assad, from power and leaves the state and military institutions intact.
US President Barack Obama warned on Friday that Moscow’s military campaign in support of Assad was a “recipe for disaster”. However, a few of the areas hit include provinces such as Idlib and Hama, where the jihadists have little or no presence. “This is not a few superpower chessboard contest”.
Putin’s decision to launch strikes in Syria marks a dramatic escalation of foreign involvement in a civil war more than four years old, where every major country in the region has a stake.
Erdogan said that Moscow had informed Ankara through a letter to its embassy that there would be an anti-IS Russian operation in Syria.
The Syrian Defense Ministry confirmed the strikes, saying SU-34 and SU-24M jets had destroyed an IS command post near Raqqa, as well as an underground bunker used for storing explosives.
He said that Russia’s military intervention in Syria was propping up Assad rather than tackling the treat from the so-called Islamic State.
At least 39 civilians, including eight children and eight women, have been killed in Russian air strikes in Syria in the past four days, according to a tally by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“The residents are very afraid, especially if the Russians are going to operate like regime planes by targeting civilians”, said activist Abu Mohammad who is from Raqa.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Francois Hollande met in Paris after a week of frenzied worldwide activity around Syria that finally broke into yesterday’s meeting, which was supposed to have been only about Ukraine.
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Russian Federation and Turkey have always been at loggerheads over the crisis in Syria, with Moscow emerging as Assad’s key global backer and Ankara urging his ousting as the only solution to the conflict. Walid Muallem told the UN General Assembly that he understood the talks, proposed by United Nations envoy Staffan de Mistura, to be “mainly to exchange ideas” and non-binding.
