The leaders expressed particular concern with Russian attacks on the Syrian provinces of Hama, Homs and Idlib on Thursday which the statement said did not target IS.
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Hassan Haj Ali, head of the Liwa Suqour al-Jabal rebel group that is part of the Free Syrian Army, told Reuters one of the targets was his group’s base in Idlib province, struck by about 20 missiles in two separate raids. But the first priority, he said, must be the Islamic State.
A combination of frame grabs taken from video released by the Russian Defence Ministry on October 1, 2015, shows Russian jets hitting a target in Syria which the Kremlin says includes a list of well-known militant organisations and not only Islamic State.
“Russia’s deployment in Syria underscores the reality that the periodic hopeful reports that the Assad regime may finally be crumbling are likely to be mistaken again”, says Philip Gordon, until April coordinator in the Obama White House on the Middle East.
Then, the USA and fellow members of the anti-Islamic State coalition could preserve the myth they were bent on “degrading, destroying and ultimately defeating” IS when in fact what we were talking about was a containment strategy which lacked definition.
Lt. Gen. Robert Otto, the deputy chief of staff for intelligence and surveillance for the Air Force, said Thursday that the Russians have been dropping “dumb bombs”, a reference to munitions that are not precision-guided.
“These military actions constitute a further escalation and will only fuel more extremism and radicalisation”, said the statement.
“We are not yet where we need to be to guarantee the safety and security” of those carrying out the airstrikes, Kerry said, “and that is the discussion that is taking place today”, referring to the US-Russia military talks. Prior to hostilities commencing, the conflict had been latent for decades, the country held together by successive repressive regimes, latterly in the hands of the Assad family and their clans-people.
“We will not only continue strikes… we will also increase their intensity”, said Andrei Kartapolov from the Russian army’s General Staff.
Lavrov spoke a day after Russian Federation launched airstrikes in Syria.
“We think that is self-defeating, it will get them into a quagmire, it will be used as a further recruitment tool for foreign fighters”, Obama said, adding that United States will work with the global community and its coalition to relieve the humanitarian pressure on refugees.
Evoking the Cold War era of USA and Soviet forces working behind the scenes to prop up client states, Obama added, “We’re not going to make Syria into a proxy war between the United States and Russian Federation”.
Syrian activists said civilians, including women and children were killed in Russian airstrikes.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday assertions that civilians had been killed in Russian air strikes in Syria were an “information attack”.
Putin has said Moscow’s air strikes are pre-emptive, stressing the need to hunt down IS militants before they cross into Russian Federation, which has a large Muslim population.
Obama’s comments come after a scramble by his administration to respond to Russia’s strikes, which began two days after the President met Putin at the United Nations.
The strikes are the first time Russian Federation has targeted IS’s stronghold in Raqa province, the de facto Syrian capital of its self-styled “caliphate”. Raed Fares, a leader of the protest movement in Kafr Nabl, said the explosion was bigger than anything local residents had seen in three years of airstrikes conducted by Syrian warplanes. But Moscow is facing a challenge at home, too, as it tries to win public support for its military operation in Syria.
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Washington and its allies oppose Islamic State and Mr Assad, believing he must leave power in any peace settlement.
