A video released by the Russian Defense Ministry of the missile launches also included an animation detailing the trajectory the missiles took flying over northwestern Iran and northern Iraq en route to their targets in Syria.
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“The Department of Defence has received a formal response from the Russian Ministry of Defence regarding DOD’s proposal to ensure safe air operations over Syria”, said Peter Cook, Pentagon spokesman.
The Observatory’s head, Rami Abdulrahman, said an assault launched by the army and its foreign allies yesterday in nearby areas of Hama province had so far failed to make significant gains, however.
Russia, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, has insisted its airstrikes are targeting the Islamic State group and other terrorists.
A Syrian general said the Russian intervention had weakened IS and other opponents of Assad but Washington says that more than 90 percent of Moscow’s strikes have targeted the moderate opposition backed by the West.
In the wake of Russian airstrikes in Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has come within one mile of the northern border of Aleppo, Reuters reported today.
Hamedani was supervising the Quds Force, a special forces division fighting Syrian rebels. It comes amid a wave of Russian airstrikes and a ground offensive by the Syrian army in the country’s central region.
“Iranian news agency Tasnim said Hamedani was functioning in Syria in “an advisory capacity” when he was killed by “[infidel] terrorists” – a euphemism for radical Sunni militants.
Powerful insurgent group Ahrar al-Sham managed to recapture one of the villages, Tel Suseen, later in the day, the Observatory and online media affiliated with the rebels said, but the rest appeared to remain in IS hands. The Islamic State group has strongholds in Raqqa and Aleppo, while Syria’s al-Qaida branch, the Nusra Front, has a strong presence in Idlib.
Syrian activists said government troops pushed from areas they control in the rural part of Latakia, into rebel-held areas in the province that is the heartland of Assad’s family and Alawite minority group.
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Syria’s civil war, which has killed more than 250,000 people in the past four years, has displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million people.
