“The local residents watched senior [Islamic State group] leaders and commanders fleeing the Syrian city of Raqqa after the terrorist group had suffered serious losses under the Russian airstrikes and cruise missiles fired by the Russian navy”, said a source who spoke to the Iranian news agency FARS Thursday. Assad has long used the term “terrorists” to refer not only to militants fighting for the Islamic State (ISIS) group, but also to various opposition groups backed by the West.
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President Barack Obama moved to dent Russia’s optimism that a deal is near with the United States and France to coordinate the fight against Islamic State.
Speaking to reporters in Manila on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Obama questioned Russia’s approach to the crisis in Syria and President Vladimir Putin’s allegiance to President Bashar Assad.
While the ministry in Moscow declined to comment on whether the USA and Russia are cooperating on the ground, a Russian official said on condition of anonymity that a few coordination has started at an operational level.
Despite Russia’s seeming willingness to join in a coalition against the Islamic State, analysts say Putin has additional motivations.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in a new interview with Italian media outlet Rai that his country was not a breeding ground for the Islamic State group and blamed the West for the emergence of the terror group, reported The Guardian. He shared Russian intelligence data confirming that 40 countries had financed Daesh, of which he said many were G20 countries.
“The tasks are being performed and performed well”, Putin said on Friday after hearing reports from the commanders in the videoconference regime. The early morning hours saw the Russian air force launch what is perhaps the largest use of long-range bombers by any country in recent history. Even as President Francois Hollande of France takes on the role of bridge builder with back-to-back trips next week to Washington and Moscow, powerful centrifugal forces are still pulling the would-be partners apart as competing national interests challenge efforts to translate that newly shared aspiration into a sustained collaboration over time. Iran is a close ally of Russian Federation.
The USA and its allies continue to face a hard balancing act, attempting to pinpoint airstrikes that will cripple refineries and other facilities for a year or more but not wipe them out because that would remove a critical resource for Syria’s postwar future.
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The USA and Russia appear to be working at cross purposes – the US bombing ISIS and seeking Assad’s ouster, while Russian planes are accused of bombing U.S.-supported rebels in support of Assad. “Maybe it’s getting through to them”, Talbott said.
