Strategic bombers flying over Russian territory unleashed 12 cruise missiles at Islamic State group targets including warehouses and command posts in the Idlib and Aleppo provinces as they launched their “third massive air strike”, the defence ministry said in a statement.
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At least 36 people were killed Friday in air strikes by Russian and Syrian jets on Islamic State-controlled Deir Ezzor province, a monitor said, describing them as the heaviest in the region since the start of the war.
In Manila, where Obama was meeting with Asian allies on the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes on Thursday took note of the intense Russian airstrikes Tuesday on the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa in eastern Syria.
Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to President Vladimir Putin on Friday that Russian warplanes destroyed 15 oil refining and storage facilities in Syria and 525 trucks carrying oil during this week’s bombing blitz. This is said to have deprived IS of $1.5 million in daily income from oil sales. All 224 people on board were killed.
A total of 500 oil tankers, smuggling oil from Syria to Iraq, were also destroyed according to the Ahlul Bayt News Agency.
The efforts of French President Francois Hollande to bring together a France-U.S.-Russia coalition against the jihadists, can not succeed unless either the US drops its demand for Assad to be removed from power, or Russian Federation drops its insistence upon killing not only the jihadist groups that the USA opposes, but the jihadist groups that the USA supports in Syria.
The missiles are seen being launched from Russian ships, from the Caspian sea.
US and French planes have also struck at oil targets in Deir el-Zour and elsewhere. Putin has ruled out Russian ground action in Syria, a position reaffirmed Friday by his spokesman, Dmitry Peskov.
In line with an agreement on aircraft safety, Russian Federation did notify the United States of its plan to strike Raqqa beforehand, Warren confirmed.
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“If [the French and the Russians] are going to cooperate together, they’ll presumably have to coordinate their targeting”, Parsons says.
