Hezbollah has sent thousands of fighters to Syria to back Assad’s forces and has played a key role in a string of government victories.
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Sheikh Maqsoud has been under intense bombardment since mid-February which has killed more than 132 civilians and injured around 900 more, the Observatory said.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov also rejected on Sunday the Pentagon’s accusations that it had deliberately targeted US-backed militants in Syria.
The official said the strikes raise serious concerns about Russian intentions and that the USA has asked Moscow for an explanation and assurances it won’t happen again.
One of the pictures portrays what appears to be the tail section of an RBK-500 cluster munition, a type of bomb seen being used by the Russian air force since the start of its mission in Syria in September.
US military commanders called their Russian counterparts on a special hotline set up to ensure the two countries’ pilots will not mistakenly run into – or fire upon – one another as they conduct daily bombing runs in the skies above Syria.
Konashenkov insisted that the Russian air force had acted “within the framework of the agreed procedures” and had given advance warning of its ground targets to the USA -led coalition.
According to news reports, the U.S. military attempted to communicate with its Russian counterparts on a channel created specifically to prevent mid-air incidents between the two countries. Recently, however, as Dr Assad’s forces have made gains toward the IS “capital” in Raqqa and around the city of Palmyra, Russian helicopter gunships and aircraft have been hitting the extremist group more frequently.
The memo marks the first broad-based challenge of official U.S. Syria policy from within the Obama Administration. In March, U.S. rocket artillery based in Jordan was used to assist Syrian fighters near At-Tanf who were fighting to take Islamic State positions south of Palmyra.
Last week, Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russian allies, gave a speech before Parliament repudiating the peace process and declaring his intention to retake “every inch” of Syria by military force, casting further doubt on the ability of current US policy to achieve its stated aims.
The minister inspected Russian Khmeimim air base in Latakia Province and also inspected the S-400 anti-aircraft missile system deployed there.
Defense Department officials today expressed concerns during a video conference with Russian Defense Ministry counterparts held to discuss June 16 airstrikes by Russian forces that struck Syrian opposition forces conducting counter-Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant operations in the area, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said. It has bombed various armed groups fighting the Syrian regime and helped the regime advance on multiple fronts.
“A videoconference between representatives of the Russian and United States defense ministries was convened to address a USA request of June 18, 2016 on the Safety of Flight Memorandum of Understanding that was agreed on October 20, 2015”, Maj.
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At least 250,000 people have died in Syria’s civil war, while more than 6.6 million have been internally displaced and another 4.8 million people have fled the country.
