Several of the long-range cruise missiles that Russian Federation fired at Syrian targets landed instead in Iran, Pentagon officials said Thursday.
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“… The Russian ships have been positioned in the south Caspian Sea, meaning the likely flight path for missiles into Syria would cross over both Iran and Iraq”.
Fallon said: “We’re analyzing where the strikes are going every morning”.
“The secretary repeated our concerns about the preponderance of targets that are being struck by Russian military forces that are not Isil-related”, said a spokesman, John Kirby, using an alternative acronym for Isis.
The push came amid warnings that the new offensive by Assad’s forces and his allies could trigger another refugee crisis in the Mediterranean.
The Kremlin has also indicated that it might engage its troops in ground operations in Syria.
US Secretary of State John Kerry directly phoned his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Thursday amid growing tensions between the two countries because of uncoordinated strategies in Syria.
“This will have consequences for Russia itself which is rightly fearful of attacks…in coming days, the Russians will begin to suffer from casualties”, Carter said at a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation defence ministers meeting in Brussels dominated by the Syrian crisis. On September 30th, shortly after airstrikes began, Major-General Igor Konashenkov announced that the goal of the operation was to “deal pinpoint strikes against ground targets of the [Islamic State] terrorist group in the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic”. It was unclear if it was Syrian or Russian.
Putin also said that French President France Hollande had voiced the idea of uniting Assad’s forces with the so-called Free Syrian Army to fight Islamic State.
On Wednesday, Russian Federation fired 26 cruise missiles at what it said were ISIS targets in Syria, assisting a ground offensive launched by the Syrian military in central western Syria.
The Observatory’s head, Rami Abdulrahman, said an assault launched by the army and its foreign allies on Wednesday in nearby areas of Hama province had so far failed to make significant gains, however.
The New York Times reports that official state media in Iran also cast doubt on the American claim.
Russia’s bombings have weakened the morale of militants and have sent thousands on the run, according to the country’s defence ministry. He could not confirm what had happened to those inside.
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Other officials said intelligence agencies are attempting to ramp up their spying efforts on Russian Federation but do not have adequate resources due to much of it being allocated to counterterrorism efforts in the Middle East.
