Over the past week, Russian Federation has directed parts of its air campaign against U.S.-funded groups and other moderate opposition in a concerted effort to weaken them, the officials say.
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Russian Federation said its warplanes also dropped precision guided bombs on a command post in IS stronghold Raqa, killing two senior IS field commanders and a few 200 fighters.
“Dozens of combatants were killed on both sides”, said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Elsewhere in Aleppo province, the Observatory reported a powerful blast in the town of Al-Bab, which is held by IS.
The Observatory said there was heavy fighting in northwestern Latakia, and that government forces were advancing.
He insisted that the Sunni countries in the region would not accept this, nor would they accept any settlement that “allowed Iran to dominate Syria”, pointing out that Daesh and other extremist groups were the symptoms, not the cause, of Syria’s misfortunes, which he blamed completely on Assad.
ISIL’s surprise attack north of Aleppo came despite intensive Russian airstrikes that Moscow, another close ally of Assad, insists are targeting ISIL, activists said.
Russian air strikes hit 55 Islamic State group targets in Syria in the past 24 hours, the defence ministry said Saturday, as Moscow has ramped up its military campaign in the war-torn country.
Islamic State said its fighters had captured five villages in its offensive and killed “more than 10 apostates”, a term it uses to describe Syrian soldiers and their militia allies.
The Pentagon expressed alarm last week after Russian Federation failed to quickly answer proposals made during initial talks, even as it launched cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea and repeatedly violated Turkish airspace.
It also said Russian strikes in Idlib had destroyed a base belonging to the Division 13 rebel group that once received U.S. weapons.
The U.S. has been carrying out airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Syria since September 2014, and in Iraq since August that year.
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Meanwhile, the United States is dropping a 0 million Pentagon program to train Syrian rebels fighting the administration of President Bashar al-Assad, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing unidentified Obama administration officials. Tehran has provided his government with military and political backing for years and has kept up its support since Syria’s civil war began in 2011.
