Iran’s semi-official FARS news agency also said that Iranian authorities also haven’t confirmed the US officials’ information at this point.
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A number of Russian cruise missiles launched from the Caspian Sea missed their Syrian targets and landed in Iran, multiple news outlets reported Thursday, citing unnamed US defense officials.
“They have shot cruise missiles from a ship in the Caspian Sea without warning; they have come within just a few miles (kilometres) of one of our unmanned aerial vehicles”, Carter said.
Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps said separately one of its generals had been killed late on Thursday near Aleppo, once Syria’s most populous city.
U.S. President Barack Obama suggested that Russian airstrikes in Syria are a sign of the growing weakness of Russian leader Vladimir Putin in an interview on CBS News, of which an excerpt was released Friday.
Jaish al-Fatah, or the Army of Conquest, a coalition of rebel and militant groups that includes the Nusra Front, operates in the area.
First Russian warplanes, tanks, armoured personnel carriers and artillery were spotted at a base off the Syrian coast. Numerous rebel groups hit by the Russian strikes are also at war with the IS group.
Backed by allied militia and Russian air cover, regime troops have retaken around a dozen villages in Hama, according to Syrian daily Al-Watan, which is close to the government.
Russia’s Wednesday strikes targeted the towns of Kafr Zita, Kafr Nabudah, al-Sayyad and the village of al-Lataminah in Hama province and the towns of Khan Shaykhun and Alhbit in Idlib, the Observatory said. The Observatory relies on a network of activists across the war-torn country. A Facebook post by the Russian defence ministry, reacting to the claims from U.S. sources, said: “No matter how unpleasant and unexpected it is for our colleagues in the Pentagon and Langley, our strike yesterday with precision-guided weapons at Isis infrastructure in Syria hit its targets”. “A very valuable commander and a true believer of Islam and the (1979 Islamic)revolution (of Iran)”, the official said on condition of anonymity. Tehran has provided his government with military and political backing for years and has kept up its support since Syria’s civil war began in 2011.
The Violations Documentation Center, a Syrian rights group, said at least 43 civilians, including nine children and seven women, were killed in the first day of Russia’s air strikes in the central Homs province.
Meanwhile, rebel groups reportedly hit by the airstrikes have asked the United States for antiaircraft missiles to defend against the assault.
The group said it documented the dropping of at least two vacuum, or thermobaric, bombs, “which are entirely indiscriminate in nature and impossible to evade, even when taking shelter”. It said the attack is believed to have been carried out by Islamic State militants.
Russian airstrikes ordered by Mr Putin have mainly focused in areas of western Syria, where Assad has sought to shore up control after losing swathes of the rest of the country to insurgents. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose country hosts more than 2 million migrants, has accused the bloc of an inadequate response. Russian Federation supplies 60 percent of Turkey’s gas needs. Russian jets twice violated Turkish airspace over the weekend.
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“I also expect that in coming days, the Russians will begin to suffer casualties in Syria”, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said during the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation meeting, according to USA Today.
