BEIRUT, Lebanon _ With Russian warplanes in the air and Iranian special forces on the ground, an emboldened Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is turning back to the biggest trophy in his country’s civil war, and this time Europe is also on the front line.
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The US military had said it believed the drone was of Russian origin, but Moscow said all its drones were accounted for.
The military operations included areas in the eastern countryside of Damascus, the southern province of Qunaitera, bordering the Israel-occupied Golan Heights, the southern province of Daraa, the northern countryside of the central province of Homs, the countryside of Hama, the northern province of Aleppo and the northern countryside of the coastal city of Latakia, where the Russians and Iranians are reportedly sharing the Bassel al-Assad Airport as a base to their operations.
Syrian government forces and their allies overran hills around Khan Touman to the south of Aleppo city following clashes with Nusra Front militants at the weekend and battled Islamic State to advance in Dekwane village, close to Aleppo’s thermal power station, on Monday, the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
A military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, also told Syria’s official SANA news agency that Syrian soldiers had destroyed the bases of the Jaish al-Fatah (The Army of Conquest) militant coalition during operations in al-Tamanah town of Syria’s northwestern Idlib Province.
That brought them to the edges of Al-Hader, 25km from Aleppo.
The Observatory said all but 17 of the 60 people killed in the fighting Thursday were civilians.
“Of course we are not fighting for specific leaders, we are defending our national interests, on the one hand”, Medvedev said. “That is the basis we are working on”, he said.
“In the West, they talk about ‘moderate opposition, ‘ but we so far haven’t seen any in Syria”, General Andrey Kartapolov told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, according to a Bloomberg translation. “If we don’t destroy these terrorists there, they will come to Russian Federation”.
Its now run by a hodgepodge of rebels and militants including al-Qaeda, the Free Syrian Army, and ISIS and for the Assad regime, regaining control of the city is absolutely critical.
“Russian war planes have conducted nine air strikes since Saturday morning targeting Talbisseh and its surroundings, and other areas in the northern outskirts of Homs”, the Observatory said.
Russian jets have flown more than 600 combat sorties since start of the air campaign, said Col.-Gen.
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At least 250,000 people have been killed since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in 2011, with 7.6 million internally displaced and over four million having fled to nearby countries.
