On Wednesday, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin that the 26 missiles their four ships had fired all hit their targets, missing all civilian areas.
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He also said he could not confirm reports that Russian missiles had crashed in Iran.
It’s unclear whether the errant missiles caused damage or casualties on the ground, the Associated Press reported.
There was no official comment to the US report.
In September 2014, the Navy launched 47 Tomahawk cruise missiles from warships in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea at targets in Syria.
Iran’s FARS news agency, which CNN describes as “semi-official”, said neither Iran nor Russian Federation has confirmed the information provided by the two USA officials yet.
Ground attacks by Syrian government forces and their militia allies using heavy surface-to-surface missile bombardments hit at least four insurgent positions and there were heavy clashes, the head of the Observatory, Rami Abdulrahman, said.
“The West has got to engage in a more meaningful way with Russian Federation than we’re now doing”.
The Russian defence ministry denied any of the missiles had fallen short of their targets after reports of crashes first emerged on USA television. An unnamed senior military official said, “The Russians carried out only one half or at best a quarter of the strikes they claim to have conducted”.
Carter argued that Russia’s focus on propping up Assad was shortsighted, even from its own national interests, and predicted that Russians would begin to suffer casualties in Syria in the “coming days”.
The announcement came one day after Russia’s Caspian Sea fleet launched cruise missile strikes against Syrian rebels from almost 1,000 miles away, a potent exhibition of Moscow’s firepower as it backs a government ground offensive.
“What we will do is continue basic, technical discussions on the professional safety procedures for our pilots flying above Syria”.
Meanwhile, a source in Iran’s Defense Ministry told RIA Novosti that Tehran has “no information of Russian missiles crashing on Iranian territory.”
“They said they were going to fight (Islamic State) but that doesn’t match up with the targets”. Carter also called out Moscow for what he said was “increasingly unprofessional behavior”.
A Syrian general said the Russian intervention had weakened the Islamic State group and other armed opponents of al-Assad, but Washington said more than 90 percent of Russia’s strikes have targeted the moderate opposition.
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A Syrian military source said on Thursday that the Syrian troops, along with forces belonging to the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah, “have seized most of the hilly region of Jeb al-Ahmar”, a highland in the western Syrian province of Lattakia.
