A officials said on today Aleppo had seen intensified fighting as Islamic State seized villages close to the city from rival insurgents. There was no independent confirmation of the death toll. It also said its planes had killed a further 100 insurgents in separate attacks in the Aleppo region.
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In the previous updates, the Moscow had been reporting hitting about 10 targets daily.
The Observatory said the extremists’ surprise advance north of Aleppo, which began Thursday night, is the most significant in months.
Other activists wondered where the U.S. military were. “Yes they are participating”. The British are part of the coalition striking Islamic State fighters in Iraq, but are not conducting strikes in Syria. Many rebels say the policy is deliberate, and that Russian Federation is pursuing a strategy Mr Assad devised, of deliberately assisting Isil so that the West is given a choice of supporting the regime or Isil.
“They have initiated a joint ground offensive with the Syrian regime, shattering the facade that they’re there to fight ISIL [Daesh]”, Carter said, using another acronym for Daesh.
The administration is under heavy criticism in Congress for a flawed approach in Syria, amplified by Russia’s muscular moves to launch ship-based cruise missile strikes and deploy fighter aircraft and battlefield weaponry – actions that caught the U.S.by surprise and underscored the failure of the Pentagon’s $500 million program to train and equip rebels. Russian airstrikes have raised questions about whether and how the US would protect rebel groups it is working with if they are hit by Russian bombs.
“We are implementing the biggest reinforcement of our collective defense since the end of the Cold War”, Stoltenberg said ahead of his meeting with defense ministers in Brussels. Future training will be greatly scaled back, with the apparent U.S. focus on providing weaponry.
“We want help from our friends, and this is what Iran is offering, and what Russian Federation is offering,” he said, hailing Russia’s recent initiative to form a coalition between Russian Federation, Syria and Iran.
On Thursday, Ashton Carter, the USA defence secretary, accused Moscow of inflaming extremism.
France has also been involved in the anti-Islamic State effort, launching its first air strike in Syria on September 27.
While Russian Federation has admitted targeting forces rebelling against Assad’s dictatorship, it claims to be mainly targeting ISIS and released the footage apparently as proof.
General Hossein Hamedani was a member of the Al-Quds Forces, the elite unit of the GRI and orchestrated, as commander of Greater Tehran, the repression of demonstrations of the Iranian opposition in 2009-2010.
The commanders, played an important role in Iran’s war with Iraq in the 1980s, got killed in the suburbs of Aleppo, Iranian state television reported.
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Hamedani is one of the most senior Guard commanders to be killed in Syria, and the second to be killed this year.
