Syrian troops backed by Russian airpower and allied militias opened a new front on Friday against rebels around second city Aleppo, where Washington claimed up to 2,000 Iran-backed forces were deployed.
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Asked whether Syria had to be ruled by Assad, Medvedev said: “No, absolutely not”. Sanctioned anti-war in Ukraine and Syria protests were being held in downtown Moscow on Saturday.
Turkey said on Friday that it had shot down an unidentified drone, which violated its air space near the Syrian border.
The United States military believes a drone downed by Turkey was Russian, a U.S. official said yesterday, contradicting Moscow’s claims that none of its drones had been lost. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation said Turkey was investigating where the drone came from.
The Turkish military said it issued three warnings before shooting down the aircraft with its fighter jets.
Turkish foreign minister Feridun Sinirlioglu said the drone crashed about two miles inside Turkish territory.
Thousands of Iranian troops have arrived in Syria to join the regime’s military forces and Hizbollah allies to launch a ground attack against insurgents in Aleppo, two senior regional officials have said.
Less than an hour into the demonstration, police arrested a woman waving a banner reading “Putin assassin, don’t bring shame on Russian Federation”, and bundled her into a van.
In an interview with the Rossiya TV channel, Dmitry Medvedev said that it is not important to Russian Federation who leads Syria in the future, as long as it is not ISIS.
Charge of Aleppo was broken up between various rebel groups and government forces since 2012. Friday’s offensive appeared to be aimed at an area south of Aleppo, rather than the city itself.
“We’re very concerned that Russian-supported offensives targeting the moderate opposition are weakening them across the board – and Isil will take advantage of that to seize more territory”, said a Western diplomatic source.
Russian officials also said their airstrikes allowed the Syrian army “to go into assault across the whole country”, Interfax news agency reported.
Russian Federation recently entered the brutal 4½-year Syrian civil war on the side of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The Syrian army said in a statement its forces were fighting in areas including Joubar and Harasta town near the capital Damascus, Homs and Aleppo provinces.
Regime forces backed by Russian air support are also pushing north from Hama toward Idlib, and separately northeast from Latakia toward Idlib in a pincer movement, officials said.
Abdulrahman said the army had recaptured the village of Abtin from rebel fighters, as well as a tank battalion base close to the village of Sabiqiya.
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The risk of a dogfight between Russian, US or Israeli aircraft isn’t the only danger in the skies over Syria. Barack Obama has said United States troops would stay in Afghanistan for at least two more years – itself an admission that the Afghan government is unable to tackle the Taliban threat alone.
