Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday Russian warplanes have taken off from a base in Iran to target Islamic State fighters in Syria.
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Russia’s defence ministry earlier said long-range bombers and fighter jets took off from the Hamedan base in western Iran and “conducted a group air strike against targets of the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist groups” in the provinces of Aleppo, Deir Ezzor and Idlib.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday there were no grounds to suggest Russia had violated the resolution, saying it was not supplying Iran with aircraft. During Russia’s first long-range missile strikes on October 7, the US said four of the missiles went awry and crashed in Iran, although Moscow denied the claim.
The arrangement seems to have brought Tehran and Moscow into greater agreement on Syrian President Bashar Assad, who has never enjoyed absolute support from Russian Federation.
Col. Christopher Garver, a USA military spokesman in Baghdad, told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday that the Russians activated a communications link with coalition officials just ahead of the bomber mission.
The destroyed facilities had been used to support militants in the Aleppo area, it said, where battle has intensified in recent weeks for control of the divided city, which had some 2 million people before the war.
“They did not impact coalition operations in either Iraq or Syria”.
Russia’s use of an Iranian air base to carry out military strikes in Syria is “unfortunate but not surprising”, a U.S. State Department official meanwhile said on Tuesday, adding Washington is still assessing the extent of Russian-Iranian cooperation.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday that Iraq, which lies between Iran and Syria, had granted Russian Federation permission to use its air space, on the condition that the planes use corridors along Iraq’s borders and refrain from flying over Iraqi cities.
Ali Samkhani, Iran’s National Security Council chief, said on Tuesday that Iran and Russian Federation are strategically cooperating in the fight against terrorism in Syria, and sharing facilities and capacities are only serving to that objective, Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
The Observatory says Russian airstrikes on the southern edge of Aleppo, targeting the route leading into eastern rebel-held parts of the city, killed 12 militants Tuesday. “It’s not a lot of time, but it’s enough, and it was enough time to make sure that we could ensure safety of flight”, said Garver.
A USA official said, however, that discussions with the Russians are still ongoing and no agreement is close.
In Syria, seven civilians were killed and nine were wounded by rocket rounds fired by armed groups on a government-controlled district of the city of Aleppo, Syria’s state-run news agency said.
Russian Federation and Iran have been expanding their ties in the past months after most of the sanctions against Iran were lifted following the nuclear deal with world powers that put restricted Iran’s nuclear program from weapons-grade capability.
The report described the air base as “quite large with a 15,000-foot (4,572-meter) runway, extensive taxiways and multiple hangars and bunkers – all seemingly in good fix”.
Iran allowed Russian warplanes to take off from its territory to bomb targets in Syria on Tuesday, an unprecedented move that underscores the deepening cooperation between two powerhouses heavily invested in the Syrian civil war.
All Russian aircraft have successfully returned to their home airfields after successful completion of the combat mission, it said.
In a letter to HRW in November, Russia acknowledged that “improper use” of incendiary weapons had resulted in “significant humanitarian damage” in Syria.
It was also thought to be the first time that Iran has allowed a foreign power to use its territory for military operations since the 1979 Islamic revolution. In the shah’s era, USA military advisers moved in and out of Iran and a series of listening posts in the country’s northeast allowed United States intelligence agencies to monitor the Soviet Union.
A senior Syrian opposition official says the latest Russian airstrikes in Syria, with warplanes taking off from Iran, aims to show Moscow internationally as “a power with teeth”.
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The announcement from Russian Federation marks the first significant stationing of its troops in Iran since World War II.
