Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Moscow is seeking to raise the level of bilateral cooperation with Washington in solving the crisis in the war-torn Syria. “And if they kill from our soldiers, kill from theirs. An eye for an eye”, Jolani said in an audio recording released late on Monday.
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As WorldViews noted earlier, there’s also a religious narrative to Russia’s role in the Middle East. In a previous era, the czars in Moscow styled themselves as protectors of the Middle East’s Christians; the recent Russian air war won the swift backing of the country’s Orthodox Church, which said the offensive was part of a “sacred battle”.
USA officials and outside experts say the Obama administration is unlikely to protect CIA-backed rebels from Russian air strikes – by providing them with surface-to-air missiles, for example – for fear they could fall into the wrong hands and be used against passenger jets in a terrorist attack.
C-17s, accompanied by fighter escort aircraft, dropped small arms ammunition and other items like hand grenades in Hasakah province in northern Syria to a coalition of rebels groups vetted by the US, known as the Syrian Arab Coalition. Jolani called on armed opposition groups to set aside their differences until both air wars had been defeated.
“Delay the disputes until the demise and smashing of the Western Crusader and Russian campaign on Syrian land”, he said.
The jihadi leader promised to pay 3 million euros ($3.42 million) to whomever kills Assad and 2 million euros ($2.28 million) to whomever kills Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, whose men are fighting alongside Assad’s forces.
Two rockets have reportedly hit the Russian embassy in the Syrian capital, Damascus, with no further details available at this point.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Washington notified Moscow Wednesday of its refusal to meet the Russian delegation.
“This is an obvious act of terrorism, probably aimed at intimidating supporters of the fight against terrorism”, Lavrov was quoted as saying ahead of talks with the United Nations’ special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, on Tuesday. “No one was killed or wounded”.
The Russians “know their targets, and they have a sophisticated capacity to understand the battlefield situation”, said Republican congressman Mike Pompeo, who is on the House of Representatives intelligence committee.
A powerful rebel alliance that includes Al-Nusra – the Army of Conquest – announced the launch of a major offensive of its own to take the central Hama province.
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A military source told AFP the decision was taken because of the high levels of “traffic” from military aircraft. It warned Israel would not tolerate rockets fired across the border, “intentional or not”.
