The Caucasus Emirate, an umbrella group composed of rebels in several Caucasus provinces, has sworn allegiance to the Islamic State.
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Sharaputdin Arslanbekov, a police official in Makhachkala in charge of fighting extremism, said the official number of Dagestan residents who have left for Syria stands at 419, but reliable intelligence indicates that the actual figure is closer to 700, a large share of an estimated 2,500 Russian citizens with the Islamic State, also know by the acronym ISIS.
Almost 600 people have been killed in Russian air strikes in Syria almost a month into Moscow’s campaign, two-thirds of them opposition fighters, a monitor said on Thursday.
“We have other operational information that leads us to believe that Russian targeting has not only not been focused on ISIL (the Islamic State group), but has in fact, caused collateral damage and a few civilian casualties to include a few civil infrastructure”, Kirby said.
The poll, conducted from October 23-26, found that 53 percent of respondents approved of Russian policy in Syria, up from 39 percent a month earlier, before the bombing began.
On Thursday, Fox News reported that Russian Federation helped deliver Iranian weapons to Syria “twice a day over the past 10 days”.
However, the polarizing effects of the conflict – Russia’s first military intervention outside the former Soviet Union since the collapse of communism – are not likely to restrict Putin’s freedom of action, argued Pyotr Topychkanov, an associate at the Carnegie Moscow Center, a think tank.
On the bright side, a report by the Associated Press notes that Dagestan has become noticeably less violent as extremists depart for service in the Islamic State, and the police have moved quickly against many returning militants.
Russia’s air campaign has given new momentum to Syria’s ground forces, who have launched offensives in several provinces with air cover from Moscow.
However, the Russian media campaign to paint the Syria operation as a high-precision anti-terrorist fight appears to be working.
The White Helmets have been seen playing somewhat fast and loose with evidence since Russian Federation joined the war, though Doctors Without Borders (MSF) did say that 12 hospitals across Syria have been hit in recent weeks.
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Of course, that was also back when Daraa itself was not the sie of the strikes.
