An additional problematic wrinkle is Russian Federation has lined up with Assad while the USA and other allied airstrikes are aimed specifically at Islamic State fighters.
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Russian warplanes hit 27 terrorist targets in the course of 22 sorties carried out in Syria overnight, the Defense Ministry said Thursday, adding that terrorist strongpoints and training camps were destroyed.
He also said NATO-member Turkey was continuing talks with the alliance and bilateral partners on enhancing its defence capabilities, including Patriot missile systems, but had not made a request for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to send military forces to Turkey.
Wednesday’s attack showcased Russia’s advanced military capabilities and closer coordination with the governments of Iran and Iraq, whose airspace the missiles traversed before striking targets in Syria held by the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, an affiliate of al-Qaeda.
Iranian government officials could not immediately be reached for comment, but the semi-official Fars news agency on Thursday said Western news reports about missiles going astray amounted to U.S. “psychological warfare” against Russia’s intervention in Syria.
The high precision strikes might have been “unpleasant and surprising for our colleagues in the Pentagon”, but the fact is that “the missiles launched from the ships hit their targets”, he said.
American officials also said that a few sort of mishap was to be expected, since the missiles had never been fired in wartime.
He did not specify where the operation would take place, but said Russian air strikes had helped “weaken the fighting capabilities of Daesh and other terrorist groups”, using the Arabic acronym for IS. “This is particularly relevant in view of the recent violations of Nato’s airspace by Russian aircraft”, Mr Stoltenberg said.
Ex MI6 head Sawers said Russia’s heavy militarisation of Syria could lead to armed confrontation between it and western armies unless the two sides agree to co-operate.
But US Defence Secretary Ash Carter said coalition forces fighting IS in Syria would not co-operate with Russian Federation.
“We’ve seen increasingly unprofessional behaviour from Russian forces”.
UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon is predicted to declare that Britain is able to create a long term troop deployment our correspondent says.
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Russian Federation is embarking on in its first military campaign outside the former Soviet Union in three decades to support Assad, who is also backed by Shiite-dominated Iran in the fight against predominantly Sunni groups.
