Russia’s Defense Ministry also mockingly dismissed U.S. State Department charges that the arrangement for use of the Iranian airbase southwest of Tehran could be in violation of the United Nations Security Council resolution 2231 prohibiting the supply, sale and transfer of combat aircraft to Iran.
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In the regular State Department briefing Wednesday, Toner said that the Russian airstrikes out of Iran “continue to hit civilian populations”.
Larijani said. “Iran has not allocated a military base to Russia or any foreign countries.”Citing the Russian Defense Ministry, certain media outlets said Tuesday that TU-22M3 and SU-34 jets took flight from the Hamedan Airbase to strike targets in Syria.Before Hamedan Airbase, Russian forces had been using Khmeimim Airbase in Syria or in Russian territories”.
Reports of increased Russian and Iranian military cooperation come just days after the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum called on the worldwide community to intervene in Syria, where it said the Assad regime is “committing crimes against humanity and war crimes against civilians, including acts of mass killing, torture and targeted attacks on medical facilities and health care providers”.
“It’s not our practice to give advice to the leadership of the US State Department”, Major-General Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.
“We need full humanitarian access immediately … and we don’t have it”, he said.
Hossein Kanani Moghadam, a former commander in Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, also echoed that point. Another official said that all the aircraft were back in Russia later Tuesday, suggesting that the action was a test or gesture, not the start of any permanent Russian presence in Iran.
It is thought to be the first time Russian Federation has struck targets inside Syria from Iran since it launched a bombing campaign to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in September previous year.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday that Iraq, which lies between Iran and Syria, had granted Russian Federation permission to use its airspace, on the condition the planes use corridors along Iraq’s borders and refrain from flying over Iraqi cities.
The United States said it was still assessing the extent of Russian-Iranian cooperation but described the new development as “unfortunate”. Syrian rebels and opposition activists reacted angrily to the news.
The strikes with high-explosive fragmentation bombs “destroyed two command centres and large field camps for training terrorists in the area of the town of Deir Ezzor, killing more than 150 fighters including foreign mercenaries”, the ministry said. “Syrian treaty allowing the bombardment of Syrian territory by drones and planes from the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, or any other foreign air bases”, he said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 10 civilians including a child had been killed in the rebel shelling.
Syria’s state-run news agency says seven civilians have been killed and nine wounded by rocket rounds fired by armed groups on a government-controlled district of the city of Aleppo.
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Russian Federation and Iran are longtime allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
