The long-range Russian Tupolev-22M3 bombers and Sukhoi-34 fighter bombers took off from Iran’s Hamadan air base to strike a range of targets in Syria.
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Tuesday’s missions were unprecedented.
Iran on Tuesday allowed Russian warplanes to take off from its territory to bomb targets in Syria, for the first time since Russia launched its operation in the war-torn Arab nation past year.
Russian Federation said Tuesday its warplanes flew out of an Iranian airbase for the first time to bomb terrorist groups in Syria, as fighting raged for control of the ravaged city of Aleppo. Russian Federation has grown impatient, with top officials several times suggesting an imminent deal, only to have American officials counter that the sides weren’t close.
Relations between Tehran and Moscow have grown warmer since Iran reached agreement past year with global powers to curb its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of UN, EU and U.S. financial sanctions.
“The Russians are showing they have options in Syria while they have Washington over a barrel on Aleppo”, said Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Iran has provided ground forces that work with local allies while Russian Federation provides air power.
The deployment marks a major switch in the bombing campaign the Kremlin launched in September to support Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, as until now Moscow had only flown raids out of its bases in Syria and Russian Federation.
But the West has been pinning its hopes on Moscow.
Shamkhahi says: “With constructive and extended cooperation between Iran, Russia and Syria and the resistance front (Hezbollah), the situation has become very tough for terrorists and the trend will continue until the complete destruction of them”. Toner said those talks continued despite stepped up Russian-Iranian cooperation.
It is virtually unheard in recent history for Iran to allow a foreign power to use one of its bases to stage attacks. “It speaks to a continuation of a pattern we’ve seen of Russian Federation continuing to carry out air strikes, now with Iran’s direct assistance, . that predominantly target moderate Syrian opposition forces”. Underscoring the US confusion, State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters that Washington was “still trying to assess what exactly they’re doing”.
“They did not impact coalition operations in either Iraq or Syria during the time”, U.S. military spokesman Colonel Chris Garver told journalists.
Voice of America reported that the USA -led coalition fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria cleared the way for Russian bombers to pass through Iraq on their way to Syria via an airbase in Iran.
The setup at the Iranian air base occurred very quickly, perhaps overnight, said USA officials, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly on military matters and requested anonymity. Iranian officials confirmed today that Russian and Iranian personnel will share the facility. Russian Federation maintains significant numbers of combat aircraft inside Syria, and it has flown long-range bomber missions from southern Russian Federation.
Syria has been gripped by a foreign-backed militancy since March 2011.
Syrian opposition monitoring groups say an airstrike on the eastern city of Deir el-Zour has killed 10 people.
The deployment in Iran comes a day after Russia’s defense minister said Washington and Moscow were near agreement on the proposed military partnership.
Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said in comments aired Monday that Russian Federation and the United States were close to joining forces in some form around Aleppo and “begin battling together so that there is peace on this territory”.
An worldwide rights group says the joint Syrian government and Russian military operation has been using incendiary weapons in civilian areas in northern Syria in violation of global law.
Toner also suggested Russian Federation violated last year’s United Nations security Council resolution enshrining the Iran nuclear deal. The resolution prohibits the supply, sale and transfer of combat aircraft to Iran unless approved in advance by the U.N. Security Council, something he said hadn’t occurred.
The strikes destroyed jihadist targets including weapons depots and command centres, “killing a large number of fighters”, Moscow said.
The Russian planes flew over Iraq, apparently without the permission of Iraq’s government, a US official said.
That by itself is hardly significant.
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Garver says the Russian bomber flights did not affect US coalition air operations.
