Russian warships based in the Caspian Sea have joined the country’s air campaign against the Islamic State (IS) in Syria by launching over two dozen cruise missiles on targets of the terrorist group, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Wednesday.
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Iranian state TV, citing Russian media, reported that the Russian missiles flew through Iran’s airspace and hit targets in Syria. “The problems begin if such a co-ordination does not exist”, he cautions. Russian Federation last week launched air strikes in Syria at the request of its long-standing ally President Bashar al-Assad.
Putin said Hollande had proposed “to at least try to unite the efforts of the government troops of President Assad’s army and the so-called (rebel) Free Syrian Army”, but a member of Hollande’s entourage quickly rebutted that claim.
“It was the heaviest Russian attack on Palmyra”, Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman said. But it has also heavily hit rebels on the front-line against Syria’s military, raising accusations that it is intervening to boost Assad in the civil war, now in its fifth year, after a series of losses by his military. The rebels repulsed government troops, al-Ahmad said.
In signs that the Syrian army’s operation is created to protect Latakia, a Syrian military source said that “the Syrian army in its latest operations is working on cutting off the southern parts of Idlib province from the northern parts of Hama province”.
It comes as the head of Iraq’s parliament’s Defence and Security Committee Hakim al-Zamili told Reuters that the country may request Russian airstrikes against IS on its soil soon, saying it wants Moscow to have a bigger role than the U.S. in the war against the group. Uncredited/AP Russian officials said they struck the Aleppo and Raqqa provinces where murderous Islamic State militants maintain strongholds, and the Idlib province where the Al Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front is strong.
Two low-flying helicopters were seen in Morek but escaped militant fire, the Observatory said.
“The sort of support for us, or all other resistance groups for that matter, should be on the level of training, providing weapons and also serious air support”, said Jaafar Hussaini, spokesman of the Kata’ib Hezbollah Shi’ite force. “The Russian state has nothing to do with them,” he said. Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said the Russians want broad discussions on worldwide cooperation between Russia and the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State.
He says US aircraft are still flying attack and other missions daily over Syria.
“Our aim is to bring everybody to fight Daesh, not to fight among themselves,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. But a Russian defense official said the talks should be much broader than what the Pentagon is seeking.
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Russian warplanes violated Turkey’s borders twice over the weekend, drawing strong protests from Turkey’s North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies.
