Over 40 people have been killed in northern and eastern Syrian cities of Raqqa and Deir el-Zour in air campaign against the Islamic State group over the past 24 hours, Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Saturday.
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In Raqqa city, Isis’s de facto capital in Syria, at least 32 people had been killed, the group said. It was unclear if those raids were carried out by Russian or regime warplanes.
The advance, with the backing of Russian air strikes, was directed partly by Russian officers, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Syrian state television said.
IS militants control most of oil-rich Deir al-Zour Province, where Khasham is located. In Syria, it is under fire by the government and Damascus’s long-time ally Russian Federation, as well as a US-led coalition also battling the jihadists in Iraq.
The United States says most of Russia’s air strikes in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are targeting other rebel groups in the west of the country, including foreign-backed fighters.
Begun in March 2011, the Syrian Civil War has taken the lives of more than 250,000 people and the homes of millions of others. It added: “We fully and categorically reject Russian dictates…”
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Mounzer Khaddam, a member of the Syria-based National Coordination Body for Democratic Change in Syria who is part of the Saudi-named delegation, said in a statement that choosing a chief negotiator from the armed opposition “is a wrong message to the Syrian people that are hoping the talks will be successful”.
